A Big Ball of Wibbly-Wobbly
by Colubrina
Summary: The war is over, the good guys have won, and Hermione Granger goes to sleep in her lovely flat only to wake up in 1953 in the bed of someone she'd really much rather were dead. "I'm working on the 'kill Lord Voldemort now, work out the temporal paradox issues later' plan," she tells him. He laughs. Tomione. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

_**People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect,  
** **but actually, from a nonlinear, non-subjective viewpoint,  
it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.  
~ Dr. Who**_

When Hermione Granger woke up she was not in her own bed. For one thing, the light was wrong and for another the smell was off. Her own room smelled of the expensive rose cream Ron gave her for every birthday and this room smelled more like the musty scent of an old bookstore and a wood fire.

She took a deep breath and kept her eyes closed. You are a war heroine, she reminded herself. You survived a monster and the personal attentions of his most trusted lieutenant. Whatever is going on, you will be fine. She reached her hand under the pillow, where she always kept her wand at home, and, when her fingers closed around the familiar stick of wood, she felt herself unwind with the relief that she wasn't unarmed.

"Well, that answers one question."

She sat up and pointed her wand at the sound of that voice and found herself staring at a man dressed in what looked to be some kind of period costume and she wondered briefly if she'd somehow gone home with an actor. The man was sitting in one of two chairs by a lit fire, had dark hair and brilliant blue eyes, and had a wand of his own leveled at her.

"What question would that be?" Hermione was suddenly aware that she was wearing nothing but knickers and an old Muggle t-shirt proclaiming her love for the Sex Pistols. Meeting a man for the first time while wearing a shirt with the word 'sex' in giant letters across her breasts seemed an inauspicious way to begin any relationship but, more importantly, also very strange. Why was she wearing what she wore to bed when she slept alone, in her own flat, while lying in this unknown room.

Something very odd was going on.

"Whether you're a witch or not," the man said. "Obviously, you are." He spoke with an upper class accent that was a little bit too perfect. You learned that, she thought. You weren't born to it.

"Who the fuck are you?" Hermione said, narrowing her eyes, "and how did I get here?"

"As to the latter, I have no idea," the man said. "You were there when I came home. I would have assumed you'd let yourself in but the last woman who tried to insinuate herself into my life via the sex she assumed she could lure me into died so unpleasantly no one has tried since."

"Lovely," Hermione muttered.

"Plus the wards are nigh well impossible to breach," the man continued on as if she hadn't spoken. "So you are an interesting puzzle." He let his eyes move off her face for the first time. "Nice shirt."

"They're an excellent band," Hermione said. "What did you say your name was?"

The man raised his eyebrows. "Tom Riddle. And you are?"

Hermione wasn't a fainter. She had gotten coldly practical during the war she'd lived through, the war she'd helped _win_ fighting against the monster the groomed and handsome man in front of her claimed to be and so, when she heard his name, she just narrowed her eyes and said " _Avada Kedavra_ ," launching the curse at him without pause. He blocked it easily.

"Interesting," he said. "You become more interesting with every moment. Have we met?"

"What year is this?" Hermione hissed.

"1953," the man - Tom Riddle - said. She snarled and tried the Killing Curse again. He blocked it again. "You already failed with that one," he said. "Don't turn into someone tiresome."

" _Sectrumsempra_ ," she snapped and he blocked that too.

"I don't think I know that one," he said. "Kudos on staying intriguing." Suddenly she felt her wand yanked from her grip and watched in horror as it sailed across the room and Tom Riddle caught it. "Still, I think I've had enough."

Hermione scrambled off the bed and began trying to cross the room to the door.

"Stop," Tom Riddle said, his wand pointed at her. "For one thing, I do believe I'd mentioned the wards. No one goes in or out of this room without my express permission." He frowned. "Usually." He gestured toward another chair next to the fireplace. "Second, this castle is filled with my followers, most of whom would do exactly one thing with an attractive woman dressed the way you are. Let's have a nice, civilized discussion, shall we, instead of you running headlong into an unpleasant assault at their hands? Then, if you like, we can go back to dueling, though I do feel I should warn you that if we do that you will quite likely die."

"Fuck you," Hermione spat at him.

"What year are you from?" he asked.

"2003," she said.

"The manners in 2003 appear to be atrocious," he said. "And I don't think much of the fashion either." His voice hardened. "Sit down or I will make you sit down."

Hermione glared at him but sat.

He cast a quick spell she didn't recognize and within moments there was a knock at the door. Tom Riddle opened the door with a wave of his wand and said to the very fair man on the other side, "I am entertaining a guest. Have the kitchen send up tea and a light snack and find some suitable attire for a woman of quality." The man - a near perfect duplicate of Draco Malfoy, Hermione noticed - began to ask a question and Tom said, in obvious irritation, "Just do it and spare me the tedious details. Or are you unable to accomplish such a trivial matter without specific instructions and incentives?"

The man was quick to reassure 'my lord' that it was no problem at all. He ran his eyes over Hermione though it seemed like he was trying to make a quick assessment of her size rather than her charms.

"Already using the pathetic 'Lord Voldemort' moniker in private?" she asked after the man had left.

Tom Riddle twirled his wand between his hands. "So very interesting," he said. "You seem to know who I am and yet I don't even know your name."

Hermione didn't speak.

"We seem to have gotten off on quite the wrong foot," Tom Riddle said. "However, as you appear to be fairly well informed about my life you might also be aware I am a not untalented legilimens. We can have a conversation or I can rape your brain. Which do you prefer?"

"You die," she said. "In the future. Just so you know. All your plans? All your _pathetically evil_ plans? Worthless. You die and I help to kill you."

"That makes me so sad," Tom Riddle said. "And I had such great hopes for my dream of opening a chain of bakeries. Well, if that's doomed to fail, perhaps I shall simply try to take over the world instead. What did you say your name was again?"

"Hermione Granger," she said, giving in to the inevitable. I'm a Mudblood, by the way."

Riddle shrugged. "I wouldn't mention that to Abraxas - he has opinions on that issue - but as you have already charmed me with your sudden appearance out of nowhere and your lack of even the tiniest bit of hesitation in using Dark curses I think I can manage to overlook that, Miss - it is Miss, isn't it? - Granger."

"Yes," she muttered. "It's Miss."

"Bit of an old maid," he observed.

"In 2003 being 25 is not considered an old maid," Hermione said, stung. "And I have a boyfriend."

That was, she thought, mostly true. They were on a break - again - but they always got back together after these breaks. She didn't technically have a boyfriend now but had the month before and would again in a few weeks. That was just how things went. They fought all the time and Ron stormed out and then he apologized and came back.

"Not one you bother to dress up for," Riddle said, considering her appearance and her claim of a boyfriend. "Another Mudblood, I assume?"

"Pureblood," she snapped.

"My," he said. "Bit of a social climber, aren't you. Well done, Miss Granger. You certainly have the looks for it."

She shook her head in fury and disbelief both that she was fencing with Tom Riddle about her personal life and that he was, in some peculiar way, complimenting her. A tray appeared on the table between them and he began neatly pouring tea from a simple pot into two cups. "Sugar or milk?" he asked her. She shook her head and sat, nonplussed, as Tom Riddle handed her a cup of tea and offered her a biscuit.

"No thank you," she said and set the cup down, the tea untasted.

"This isn't hell," he said, amused, "And I'm not Hades. You won't be trapped forever just because you eat something."

"I beg to differ with you on the hell bit," she said, "Though I do agree you don't rise to the level of a god, much as you might like to."

Tom Riddle sighed and took a sip of his own tea. "What, I wonder, am I to do with you," he mused. "You've killed me in your past and my future. Since you already did it, it cannot be undone." He leaned back and bit his lip as he pondered. "Or can we change time? And if so, by how much?"

"I don't want to change the future," she snapped. "Anything that ends up with you dead is good."

He eyed her. "It must be very unpleasant, this future," he said. "It's certainly made you hate me very much and all I've done is offer you tea."

"And threatened me with legilimancy, among other things," she pointed out.

"You did try to murder me the moment you heard my name," Tom Riddle said. "A reasonable man might take exception to that." He took another sip. "And yet, nevertheless I've sent a man off to find you clothing and am sitting her trying to have a discussion when, let's be fair, no one would blame me for just killing out of hand." He poked at the biscuits before adding, "Self defense, you see. And you _did_ use an Unforgivable curse on me, or tried to." He glanced up. "And you meant it too."

"I did," Hermione agreed. "Give me back my wand and I'll mean it again."

"I don't think so," Tom Riddle said. He smiled at her. "I'd much rather have you on my arm as my fair and lovely companion."

"Are you insane?" Hermione asked him before muttering, "Never mind, of course you are. Don't bother answering that."

"I'm quite rational," Riddle said. "Am I not in the future?"

"No," she said baldly. "You're an utter loon."

"See, I'd like to avoid that." He smiled. "I think you'll help me."

"No."

There was a knock at the door and, again, Tom opened it from where he sat and, again, a man Hermione assumed was Abraxas Malfoy stood in the doorway. He had two large shopping bags from Harrods, of all places, that appeared to be stuffed full. "I had to - "

"Don't care," Riddle said. "Did you do what I asked?"

"Yes, my lord," the man said.

"Then leave the bag and get out," Riddle said. Once the door was shut, he sighed. "Good help is hard to come by," he said by way of explanation and then made a shooing gesture. "Go put something on. I assume you're able to do minor magical alterations on your own?"

"I'd need my wand for that," Hermione said, holding out her hand. He tossed it to her and the moment - the very moment - it was in her hand she tried a Cruciatus curse.

"I admire your focused intent," Tom Riddle said as he somehow summoned her wand back again, "as well as the way you've tried a new strategy, but I simply cannot permit you to curse me. I see I shall have to fix any clothing issues with your new wardrobe myself." He let his eyes travel along her body. "Do you want to stay in your knickers?"

She flushed and turned to go rummage though the bags thinking with black humor that it was too bad she'd never be able to tell _Draco_ Malfoy that his grandfather had gone shopping for her in a _Muggle_ department store. Or had, at least, apparated in, stolen a bunch of things, and apparated out again. Abraxas had excellent taste, she had to admit, and a good eye for female sizes; she pulled on a polka dotted dress with a white collar and matching belt and permitted herself a little, feminine spin of delight at the full skirt.

"Much better," Tom Riddle said. "I cannot tell you how disconcerting it was to converse with you before." He gestured toward her seat and she sat back down. "As I was saying, I think you'll be my lovely companion."

"Do you normally just inform people of things like that?" she asked him. "No, 'Gosh, I'd like to go steady with you, Miss Granger?' Just, 'do it'?"

Tom Riddle shrugged. "You're trapped in a time you don't belong, in a castle with a man you've killed, or will kill, and whom you hate. And, while it's boring to point out the obvious, I'm not interested in wooing you, only in taking advantage of your knowledge. Aren't you at least the tiniest bit curious how you ended up here?" He smiled at her again and she shivered at how warm and engaging that smile was. "And, really, killing me might be a bad idea. Who knows what that would do to the timeline."

"I'm working on the 'kill Lord Voldemort first, sort out the temporal paradox issues later' plan," Hermione said. She tried to keep her eyes away from her wand. "Or I would be."

"No interest at all in changing that future?" Tom Riddle said. "Think of how much influence you could have over me as my trusted advisor."

"Trusted?" she snorted at that.

"You'll sleep in my bed, eat at my side," he smiled. "Everyone will assume we're madly in love." He set his cup of tea down and studied his nails. "And if you step out of line, I'll make you wish you were dead."

"I will never stop trying to kill you," Hermione said.

"As long as you do it in private," Riddle said with a shrug. "It would be bad for my image for you to be quite so, let me see, what should I call it - "

"Eager to kill you? Not actually a girlfriend but a prisoner?" Hermione suggested.

"Oh, the minions wouldn't care if you were a prisoner," Riddle said. "They've certainly had their own share of such. No," he said as she paled. "I just can't have them thinking it's acceptable to attack me and if you were to do it where they could see I'd have to nip that little behavior problem in the bud." He stood up. "It's not like you have a real choice, Miss Granger. We can enjoy one another's company as we unravel the mystery of your appearance in my bed or I can repeatedly torture you to amuse myself and then ask you questions about the future while you lie on the floor weeping." He glanced at the scar on her arm. "We might want to cover that up. As I said, Abraxas has opinions."

"Why not just do the latter?" Hermione demanded as the man cast a glamour hiding the scar.

"You are intriguing," he said. "It was impossible for you to appear here and yet you did. You are clever and talented and I am easily bored. And the possibility you might help me do better, whether you wish to or not, makes it worth my while to keep you mentally whole."

"I hate you," she said in a low voice.

"You don't even know me," Tom Riddle said. "Perhaps when we further our acquaintance you will change your mind."

Hermione exhaled, terrified at that possibility. Still, if she were well and truly trapped here, it was better to play along then not.

Tom Riddle held out his arm and, recognizing the implied command, she stood up and took it. "It's time for you to meet the minions," he said. "They are mostly idiots. Try not to be too depressed at their lack of wit or talent."

"It's probably all the inbreeding," she muttered.

Tom Riddle's laughter filled the room as he opened the door for her. "I knew I liked you," he said.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Welcome to my new Tomione. It is wholly rough drafted so you may read without fear of abandonment._**


	2. Chapter 2

Abraxas Malfoy grated on Hermione's nerves after about three minutes; he was too much like Draco. They could have passed for twins with their nearly white hair and their grey eyes but, worse, they had the same arrogant belief they were superior to everyone in the room. Abraxas fawned on her instead of insulting her but it was the flip side of the same, unpleasant coin and she fantasized about punching him the way she had - the way she would - his grandson. The rest of Tom Riddle's gang was worse and she found herself turning to the handsome man and mouthing 'Really?' after a particularly obsequious bit of idiocy.

He smiled at her. "Mulciber, you're boring my sweet love here," he said. "Stop."

The man threw an indecipherable look at Hermione but mumbled an apology.

"Where did you say you came from?" Thoros Nott asked her.

"London," Hermione said. "I woke up in Tom's bed. No idea how I got here."

"And already madly in love," Nott said.

"Tom exaggerates," Hermione replied and Nott snorted in evident agreement.

"You shouldn't doubt the depths of my interest in you, my love," Tom said.

"It's not your interest I doubt," Hermione snapped. "It's your love."

"Fair enough," Tom said. "But calling you 'my interest' makes you sound like a line on an account statement from Gringotts, so please forgive my use of the more conventional pet name. My love."

The last two words were emphasized and Hermione set her mouth in a line. "Do you have anything to drink?" she asked at last. "Something stronger than tea, maybe?" She looked around the room they'd gathered in for some kind of pre-dinner social hour. Wherever they were, whatever castle this was, it belonged to someone with money. The oriental carpets were thick, the fireplace large enough to roast a goat, and the walls were covered with built in bookcases made out of some beautiful, dark wood. Hermione's fingers itched to go pull volumes off the shelves and look at them. Tom Riddle followed her gaze and said, with perfect courtesy, "Abraxas, get the lady a glass of wine while I show her your collection."

"Is this Malfoy Manor?" she asked in sudden horror, her scar itching at the thought. Tom had called the place a castle so she'd assumed, foolishly, that he was being literal.

"Yes," Tom said. "Anything you'd like to tell me about it?"

"Shall I speak freely," she murmured, tracing her fingertips over the scar he'd glamoured away and controlling her reaction to the place.

"Maybe some things are better left for pillow talk," Tom said. "Let me show you the books."

He seemed fascinated by her sudden withdrawal and became every inch the solicitous lover, leading her to the bookcase, pulling volumes out one at a time, and discussing the contents. He asked her her specific magical interests and when she said, her eyes narrowed, "I did a bit of a practicum on horcrux destruction," he nearly licked his lips before selecting a text on basilisks.

"You might find this makes for interesting reading, then," he said.

"We kill that too," she said, her voice soft enough only he could hear her. "Slaughter it and use it for parts."

She closed her fingers around the book and he let his hand rest over hers. "If you continue to be quite so interesting yourself, Miss Granger," he said with his mouth at her ear, "I shall never let you go."

"Lucky me," she muttered and left his side to go back to the group of Death Eaters, all sporting the tell tale snake and skull Mark on their arms. Abraxas handed her a glass of red wine, praising a vintage she was sure she wouldn't have been able to appreciate at the best of times, much less while standing in Malfoy Manor surrounded by these disgusting men. She eyed his arm and said, "Is that a Muggle tattoo?" with the sweetest voice she could muster.

Thoros Nott looked aghast. "No," he said. "We are a group dedicated to… no. It's _not_ a Muggle anything. It's a magical symbol of our beliefs."

"You believe in snakes?" Hermione asked, "or skulls?"

"Snakes are a traditional symbol of rebirth and immortality," Tom Riddle said. He'd come back to her side and hovered there with an attentiveness she could have done without. "The ouroboros, for example, is a well known symbol of the eternal cycle."

"Everything comes around again?" Hermione asked. Tom began to nod and when she added, "So nothing can really be changed. What is fated to be will be?" his mouth tightened.

"That would be one interpretation, yes," he said. "I prefer to think our lives are a bit more fluid. You notice, I am sure, that our snake is not biting its own tail but rather springing forth from death, unfettered."

"Such an interesting design," Hermione said. She set her hand on Riddle's arm. "Where's yours?"

"I don't have one," Tom said.

"You aren't in the club?" Hermione asked. "How sad to be so left out."

The Death Eaters all looked horrified at her insubordination.

"Lord… Tom Riddle is a great man," the one called Avery finally said. "He's going to bring us all to great things. He's a brilliant leader, the most powerful wizard the world has ever seen. You're - "

"Adorable," Tom said, cutting the man off. "So very cute." He tapped her on the nose. "But there are limits to my sense of humor, Hermione," he said. "Don't test them." He wrapped an arm around her waist. "Maybe you'd like a Mark of your own?" he suggested, "since you are so very interested in the design."

She felt all the blood drain from her face.

He smiled at that pallor. "No?" he asked. "But it's generally considered an honor."

"I don't really feel worthy," she said. "My love."

He laughed and kissed her temple and she stiffened in his arms. "You are worthy of anything I decide you are," he said. "But I think we can hold off on any kind of initiation for a bit. My love."

After dinner Tom escorted her back to his room with gracious courtesy. Once behind the door he leaned up against it and leveled his wand at her. "So," he said. "Tell me about Malfoy Manor and why you hate it so."

She walked away from him, turning her back on his pointed wand; let's find out, she thought, just how aggressive he was willing to be. "Do you think Abraxas was clever enough to get some kind of nightgown?" she said as she began rifling through the bags. When Tom didn't answer she sighed and dumped first one, then the other, bag onto the bed and began sorting through her new wardrobe.

"Hermione," Tom said in a warning voice.

She lifted up one dress. "Is this supposed to be sleepwear do you suppose?" she asked.

"No," he snapped. "You can sleep nude for all I care. Tell me about the Manor."

"Oh, this old place?" Hermione sat on the edge of the bed and looked at Tom Riddle. "One of your little Death Eaters tortured me here. A little Cruciatus, a little carving in my arm. You know. Ordinary things to you, I'm sure, but I find it puts me off the place."

"Interesting," he said slowly. "I don't frighten you at all, but a drawing room does. I find I am puzzled by that."

"Technically," she admitted, "you and I have never had much direct contact. Plus, in the future you look different so it can be a bit of a mental trick to remember that you are not just another man my own age."

"I look better?" he asked, a smug tone in his voice as if he knew the answer.

She snorted.

"Not better," he said, obviously a bit surprised by that. This was a man who expected to age well.

"I don't know," Hermione began to fold up the clothes. "How do you personally feel about being bald, a kind of blueish white, having red eyes and lacking a nose?"

Tom began to laugh and then, when she looked up and smiled at him he stopped. "You're being serious," he said.

"You're quite unattractive," she said. She looked him over. "Well, in the future."

He smirked at her. "And now?" he asked.

"I find that the evil sociopath thing trumps your pretty cheekbones," Hermione said. "Plus, you murdered my friends. This may be unusual in the company you keep, but I don't care for that."

"I haven't done it yet," Tom said. "Perhaps you can convince me not to." He walked toward her. "Tell me how to be better at what I want, Hermione," he whispered, his voice sending shivers down her spine. "Tell me how to reach my goals without failing and I can spare whomever you like."

"You could just Imperius me," she said. "Why be so civilized as to ask when you can just take?"

He sighed in feigned exhaustion at her ignorance. "It doesn't work quite like that," he said. "I could certainly order you to _do_ things. I could order you to tell me everything you knew and you would, but without any kind of critical filter it becomes just noise. The imperiused mind doesn't think very well." He began to fold the clothes Abraxas had acquired. "And legilimancy is similarly problematic. There's just too much information. 'Where were you on Thursday for tea?' Yes, I can fish that out. 'How do you feel about me?' Easy. 'What steps should I take to ensure my rise to power goes smoothly?'" He shook his head. "Too complex and my assessment of what I would see in your head would be far too influenced by my own bias to be useful."

"So you have to be nice to me," she said, struck by that. "You have to convince me why it's in my own best interest to help you."

"I could torture you," he said softly.

She smiled. "It's been done before, as I believe I just mentioned," she said, her voice just as quiet. "Do you know what I did?"

"Broke?" he asked.

"Lied," she said. "I _lied_ to a woman who called herself your most devoted servant, your most loyal. She had a knack for that curse, too. She'd tortured people into insanity with it before and I _lied_ to her despite everything she threw at me." She smiled at him. "I lay on the floor and sobbed in more pain than I knew a person could experience and I lied. So go on, Tom Marvolo Riddle, torture me. You'll break me eventually, I'm sure, but you'll break me into madness, not truth."

He took a step away from her and regarded her, his lips pursed. He released the glamour on her arm with a word and studied it. "So very interesting," he said at last. He reached a finger out to draw it along each letter and Hermione froze under his touch but didn't move away as goose pimples rose along her flesh. "When I Marked Abraxas," he added conversationally, "he wept like a baby and then threw up on his pretty rugs. I think he would have promised me the moon and the stars to make it stop."

"Hurts, I take it?" she asked.

"Very much so," Tom said. His finger lingered on the final 'd' in her scar. "So I can't break you," he murmured. "Not in a way that would be useful to me. And I still have no idea how you got here, or why. Nor, I think, do you. Or is that something you're keeping from me?"

Hermione shook her head. "I… I went to sleep in my own bed and woke up here," she said. "If anyone had asked me to travel back into the past to kill you I would have refused." She shuddered. "It was over," she whispered. "You were dead, it was over. Why is this happening?"

Tom shrugged and pulled his hand away. "I have no idea," he said, "but I intend to find out. Are you a weapon? A present? A tool or a trap?" He frowned. "Will you give me your word not to attack me? I don't want you wandering around without your wand nor do I thrill the option of keeping you locked away in these rooms."

Hermione looked at him "The moment a wand is in my hand I will do my best to kill you," she said, the words as close to a vow as she could make them. "If a knife comes to hand, I'll use that."

"I am an adaptable man," Tom said as he rubbed his face. "I can adapt to you as long as you seem worth the effort, and you know I intend to try to coax you into helping me of your own volition, especially given it seems I have no other practical option. However, if you like making things difficult for yourself and prefer to live as a virtual prisoner with no magic I will not hinder you."

Hermione stood up. "Is there running water?" she asked. "I'd like to take a shower and remove the stench of even the thought of collaborating with you."

"Difficult it is, then," Tom said. He pointed to a door on the opposite side of the room. "I'll send Abraxas out for some kind of sleepwear."

"Thank you," Hermione said. "How very kind you are." The words were laced with as much sarcasm as she could muster.

"I'll tell him to make it sexy," Tom said. "I wouldn't want you to think me too nice."

"Little chance of that," she muttered before she disappeared into the bath.


	3. Chapter 3

In the morning Hermione tucked herself into another one of the dresses Abraxas had looted, thinking that this felt very much like wearing a costume, and Tom Riddle suggested they go for a walk on the grounds so they could talk in private while they got fresh air. Once they were free of the Manor, and Hermione was wishing Abraxas Malfoy had managed to get her shoe size right and hoping she wouldn't turn an ankle on the gravel paths that wound through the impressive gardens, Tom said, his hand on her elbow so he could 'assist' her along the walk, "Horcruxes."

"Evil things," Hermione said. "Splitting your soul." She smiled at him again. "I destroyed one of yours."

"Will destroy," he corrected her. "Maybe." He helped her down an uneven step. "Be careful," he admonished before adding. "I could kill you."

She shrugged. "I already did it so, _my love_ , it's too late."

"Mmm," he said and led her to a small overlook, shooing away one of the white peacocks that had approached them in search of food. "Pesty things," he said.

"Horcruxes?" Hermione asked. "I'd call them evil and poorly thought out, but pesty wasn't a word that ever came to mind."

"Poorly thought out?" Riddle sounded offended though she suspected that tone was false. He was a good actor.

She shrugged and leaned on the stone railing and looked out across the extensive park. "I admit I never quite understood what you wanted," she said. "I always laid that at the feet of you being round the bend; one doesn't expect a madman to make sense."

"I'm quite rational now," he pointed out.

"Debatable," Hermione said. "Still, you could explain what it was you wanted to do. Want to do."

"Be the most powerful wizard alive," Tom Riddle said. "Never die."

She eyed him. "Are you lying to me or yourself?" she said. He made an inquisitive sound and she said, "Done. You've got - what? - two horcruxes by now?"

"Three," he said.

"Ah," she nodded. "The locket."

He gave her one of those smiles that seemed amused and angry at the same time. "Yes," he said. "Do try not to mention that to the gentlemen at the Manor," he said. "I would become annoyed with you and I tend to hurt people who annoy me."

"Gentlemen?" Hermione asked as archly as she could. "And here I thought I met all of the guests last night. You've been hiding gentlemen somewhere?"

Tom chucked her on the chin. "You're cute when you're being clever, Miss Granger," he said. She pulled away from his touch in revulsion and, mockingly, he laid his hand along her cheek as if in a caress. She stared at him, her heart pounding and trapped; it felt like fire everywhere their skin touched and, based upon his sudden intake of breath, he noticed it as well. He left his hand there for a long moment in defiance of the unwanted chemistry and then pulled it away. "Explain more why you think I'm lying," he said.

She resisted the urge to reach up and wipe at her face where he'd touched her. "If all you cared about was eternal life you'd take your filthy little horcruxes and go find some isolated cottage to live in. Never grow old. Never die. Just you and your scattered bits of soul for forever."

Tom Riddle regarded her with his steady eyes. "That wouldn't meet the requirement of being the most powerful," he said.

She felt caught in that gaze. "Aren't you already, though," she asked, hating the way her voice shook. "You disarmed me without effort and I've lived through a war." He made a dismissive sound and she said, "No. I'm very, very good. People called me the brightest witch of my year, some said of my generation. And you've silently pulled my wand out of my fingers without even trying. You have power and you have eternal life." Her voice had become almost pleading. "Take them and be happy and go away, Tom Riddle."

He murmured, "The brightest?" in a tone of disbelief and then shrugged and bent down to scoop up a handful of gravel. "Put out your hands," he instructed and, confused, she did so. He poured the gravel into them and, as each stone fell, it was transformed into a pearl.

Hermione felt the pearls in her hands and stared at them, transfixed by wonder. "Illusion?" she asked.

"Transfiguration," he corrected her. "They are true pearls."

"Until I do a _finite_ ," she said.

"Which you, at least, cannot do with a wand," he said. He held his hands out. "Give them back."

She did, letting the white gems slide through her fingers with some regret. He watched her expression with an unreadable one of his own and then, when he had the pearls all held within his fingers, he tossed them into the air and she gasped as they turned into white flower petals and drifted down like snow to settle at their feet.

"Do you forget in the future that magic is wonder?" he asked, amused and pleased by her reaction.

She shook off the spell he'd woven around her. "If I did, it was your doing," she said. "I didn't have a lot of time to play with pearls and flowers because I was trying to stay alive."

"I sometimes wonder," Tom said as if she hadn't spoken, "whether the ones raised to it ever properly appreciate how incredible magic is."

"Maybe not," she said.

"I would like to give you your wand back," he said abruptly. "The men I've collected, they respect power and little else. As long as you have no wand, you're vulnerable and I can't watch you every moment."

"Why do you care?" she asked, bending down to pick up one of the petals and rubbing it between her fingers. "You do keep threatening to kill me and you know I plan to do the same to you."

"You don't need to understand my every motivation," he said, "and I have no intention of explaining myself to you any more than I already have. Promise me you won't attack me and I'll hand over your wand." He reached out a hand to tap her on the nose again in one of his condescending little gestures and then seemed to think better of it. "One week," he said. "Promise me a week and you can have your wand."

Hermione turned away from him. "It's already done," he said. "Time is changing and shifting because you're here. I was going to go meet with a Dark wizard today and didn't because you are a more interesting puzzle. That's one change. Will it be important? Perhaps that meeting was the one that spurred me into the war you fought. Maybe now I'll do something else. You have the power to influence me - "

"Maybe," she said.

"Maybe," he conceded. "But are you so cowardly you won't even try to take it? So resigned to your future you won't try to turn me into a tool you can wield?" He set a hand on her shoulder. "So many opportunities," he whispered in her ear. "So many possibilities. How can you resist them?"

"I remind myself you want to use me so you will win," Hermione said. "Your world had beggars in the streets and people like me homeless and wandless and helpless. Your world was dark and - "

"And hasn't happened yet." The man slid his hand down her arm and kept his mouth at the side of her neck and he whispered. "If you do nothing that will all happen. If you act, what will be?"

"Something worse," she said. Despite trembling against her will she kept her voice cool and steady. "Something where you aren't defeated. Something where - "

"Or something better." The feel of his hot breath on her skin made her clench her fists. "Something where my dear, sweet love influences me toward kindness."

"You have no kindness."

"Where she uses my love for her - "

"And you are incapable of love."

"Are you so sure?" He set his hand on her hip, the fingers pressing in and pulling her back toward him. "And even if I am, even if the blandishments of a pretty woman have no power over me, do you think I would be fool enough to disregard warnings on how I did it wrong? If your world of death and war ends with me losing and dying, I have quite the incentive to listen to you. Maybe a world with no war accords me both the power and eternal life I desire."

"One week," she said, wrenching herself away from him and nearly falling as the too large heels slipped on a bit of loose gravel. She caught herself against the railing and hid the pain of the sudden impact. "One week," she said and turned to face him with her hand held out. "Give it to to me."

"Break your word," Tom said, "And I _will_ torture you."

"It would be worth it to suffer if you were to die," Hermione muttered.

"Horcruxes," he reminded her with a sly smile. "And you don't know where they are. So you can attack me. You can _annoy_ me. If you got terribly lucky, you could even hurt me. But you can't kill me."

She kept her hand held out and said, "I promise not to try to hurt you for one week."

He pulled her wand out of his pocket and tossed it over. Her fingers closed around the wood and she shuddered with the relief she felt. "I make no promises about the rest of your evil crew," she added as she used a charm to resize her shoes so they fit better.

He shrugged. "I, myself, am frequently overcome by the urge to cast the odd Cruciatus or two at them. I would hardly fault you for feeling the same way."

Hermione hefted her wand in her hand, spun it from one finger to the other, leveled it at Tom Riddle, and finally cast a finite on the flower petals that still littered the ground at their feet and smiled to see them shift back to pebbles.

"Show me something," he suggested and she eyed him and then cast her Patronus. The otter sprang from the tip of her wand and gamboled about in the air between them, ignoring the wizard. She felt her lips tug up the way they always did in the presence of the raw joy her otter exuded. Tom studied the silvery animal and then said, "Bit obscure," he said. "You didn't learn that at school, I'd wager."

"Not from the staff, no," she said, still smiling as she remembered Harry teaching them all how to pull up happiness at will and use it to fight back against the despair of everything. Nothing had ever dimmed Harry's light, not his horrible family, not abusive teachers, not Dumbledore's manipulations. He had been a boy, and was a man, made of love. She looked at Tom and the smile faded as she regarded Harry's nemesis. "The boy who kills you taught it to me," she said.

"The pureblood boyfriend?" he asked, misreading her expression.

She laughed at that and the otter wiggled with pleasure at the sound. "No," she said. "A halfblood. A hero."

"Not a villain like me?" Tom asked, amused half smile on his face.

"Nothing like you," she said, then rubbed at her face and admitted, "Nothing like you in ways that matter. Like you in… other ways." At Tom's silence she said, "Both orphans, both raised in environments designed to crush all hope."

"You do know a lot," Tom said. She watched him lean away from her, the gesture probably the first unconscious movement he'd made in her presence.

"I know you're the last descendent of Salazar Slytherin," Hermione said, watching his face. "I know your father was a Muggle." His eyes tightened at that and she could see where, assuming he aged, he would have lines when he was older. He would wear them well. "I know you killed him."

He smiled at that and she was chilled.

"Yes," he said. "I did. Do you want me to describe how he pleaded with me for mercy? The idiot girl at school had been a mistake but I was able to take my time with him and so I did."

She controlled her shiver and said, "You can keep the tedious details of how you are a monster to yourself." The otter gave her reproachful look as it faded and she cursed internally at the blatant way the thing revealed her own emotions.

Tom took a step toward her. "What do you think of, Miss Granger?" She didn't answer and he pressed the point. "What memory do you summon up to bring your pretty Patronus to your side? A childhood memory? Your first kiss? The first time a boy slipped his sweaty hand under your jumper and fumbled with the clasp on your brassiere?" He took another step and curled his lips up in a half smile he had to know made most women's hearts beat faster.

Hers too, but she'd be damned if she let him know that.

Literally.

"I remember the sound of your body hitting the floor," she said, meeting his eyes.

Tom Riddle didn't react the way she expected. He reached a hand out and brushed his thumb across her lips and she had to force those lips to stay pressed shut when every part of her wanted to open them nervously and lick at them with the tongue she bit down on. "Fascinating," was all he said and she wasn't sure whether he was talking about the memory she claimed to use to summon joy or the way they kindled at each other's touch.


	4. Chapter 4

Hermione Granger, trespasser from the future and Mudblood, might hate him but, Tom Riddle thought with admiration, she played fair. She liked to let him know she _could_ curse him, often by tossing nasty little hexes at his minions, but she hadn't raised a wand to him since she'd promised not to.

Abraxas Malfoy was somewhat the worse for wear, and he was becoming concerned she might actually kill Dolohov.

Well, if that happened, it happened. Some things couldn't be helped.

She also answered any question he asked her. He couldn't be sure, of course, that she wasn't lying. A quick dip into her head had shown him that while she was no master of the art of occlumency she'd picked up a few things; she knew enough to make him have to do the unheard of and trust her. It wasn't a feeling he liked and one he didn't intend to have to endure with anyone else in all of what he meant to be a very long life.

"The horcruxes were a mistake." She had opinions as well. "Bad enough to make one - "

"Three," he interrupted her.

"But seven was too many. I'm not sure, of course, whether it was the soul-splitting that made you unstable, or being incorporeal for so many years, but it you made too many. One is really enough."

"Three," he said again.

"So you have fail safes now." She regarded him seriously. "Don't make any more. The snake was - will be - a particularly dumb idea."

"I turn a mortal snake into a repository for a fragment of my soul?" Tom couldn't quite believe that.

"I did say you were unstable."

She also gloated.

They were sitting on one of Malfoy Manor's many patios. Abraxas, despite the witch's tendency to point her wand in his direction, had supplied her with a seemingly endless wardrobe, and she had softened toward him ever so slightly in response. This had not worked out well for Antonin Dolohov but her antipathy toward that particular Death Eater had given Tom the opportunity to admire her curse work. She was, he had to admit, fetching when she swept the man out of her way with little more than a flick of her wand, slamming him into cabinets and doorways. "You look lovely today," Tom said. She'd rifled through all the dresses Abraxas had procured and opted for high waisted trousers with a wide belt and a shirt that teased with the possibility it might be translucent if the light hit it properly. So far the light hadn't so hit it but he found that hope did, indeed, spring eternal.

That he was starting at a woman's curves disconcerted Tom Riddle far more than it should and he tried to solve that problem by leaning forward and running his fingers through the hair she'd allowed utter freedom. "Very lovely," he added.

"Do you have to always be touching me?" Hermione Granger demanded. "That isn't part of our bargain and has nothing to do with my trying to steer you into being somewhat less violent."

Tom ran a finger over her pouting mouth before he took his hand away and leaned back, ignoring the fact that touching her, far from ending his unwanted fascination with her appearance, had made blood rush to bits of himself that seemed insufficiently under control. "I'd stop if you didn't like it," he said.

She wiped a hand over her mouth with a shudder. "I don't," she said.

"You're lying, and it would make you less interesting if it weren't about this particular subject," Tom said. "But no matter. Tell me more about the incorporeal thing."

He watched her shift in the chair and hid his smile. She blinked too often. She looked away. She moved her weight from one side to the other. About the horcruxes she was telling the complete and utter truth; in her world he'd made too many, including a choice of vessel so poor he had to believe he did indeed lose his mind. No more horcruxes; he didn't want to risk insanity. Eternal life as a raving fool had no appeal.

About his touch, however, she was lying. She could barely keep herself from leaning into his hand. She hated him, that was true, but he fascinated her and the woman was drawn to the interesting and the complicated.

"Odi et amo," he murmured.

"What?" she asked sharply.

"A Muggle poet," he said with a shrug. "We had a relentless would-be Latin master at the orphanage and some things one does not forget, especially when the less poetic end of the language turns out to be useful for spell creation. Not important. Incorporeal, remember?"

"You try to kill a child prophesied to destroy you," she began.

"A wise enough move," he said.

"And his mother throws herself in your way."

He frowned. "People do that all the time," he said. "I don't mean to be obtuse here, Hermione, but, despite romantic stories to the contrary, sacrificial love doesn't really accomplish anything. If mothers who died for their children turned me incorporeal, I'd be such already."

She gave him a look of loathing mixed with fear. "It worked for her," she said. "Perhaps there were mitigating factors. Maybe you'd made some vow that got tangled up in the whole mess. I don't know. I can only tell you what happened. You try to kill Harry and his mother dies but he's unharmed and you end up a spirit."

"Harry," he said the name slowly, wrapping his tongue around it. This was valuable information indeed, and something she probably hadn't meant to let slip. "Thank you, my love. Harry."

"I am not your love," she spit out.

"Near enough," he said. "My only love sprung from my - "

"Nor do I flatter myself I am your only hate," she said. "You hate the birds for flying, you hate the - "

"I don't," he said. "Why envy birds when flying is simple."

"Brooms are uncomfortable," she countered.

He looked at her and began to smile. "So don't use one," he said. "I don't."

"We are not all Tom Riddle, magician extraordinaire," she said.

Tom leaned back and tilted his head up so he could look at the sky. "Why do you let them tell you how to do magic?" he asked. He'd meant to needle her but found he was genuinely curious. She was certainly powerful enough to not need the crutches of spell books and pre-made magical items. "If you don't want to fly, don't. But if you do, don't refuse because some charmed object doesn't please you." He closed his eyes and feigned sleep. "Or are you just another one of Hogwarts' formulaic witches, good at following recipes but nothing else?"

He could hear her stand up and move toward him but, trusting her promise, he kept his eyes closed and his muscles relaxed until he felt water streaming down over his head. He sputtered and gasped and opened his eyes to see the witch floating - almost flying - in front of him, pouring the pitcher fro their table onto him. He began to laugh and, reaching forward, yanked her onto his lap. Unstable in air she'd just begun to even think about manipulating, she fell forward and he found his mouth at her skin as her weight pressed into his legs. He put his hands around her back to keep her from falling backward onto the stone pavers; if she cracked her head open now he'd lose all the other knowledge of the future she had hidden away. "You are a rotten woman," he said, breathing in her scent. "How will I get dry now?"

"Magic?" she suggested with an arch smirk.

He licked his lips before he pressed them to her neck. "Magic," he agreed. Her skin was cool under his touch and the hands she had on his shoulders to steady herself curled into claws that dug into him as he ran his tongue along her skin. He waited for her to pull herself away from him but she didn't for a long, long moment. He could almost hear the blood racing in her veins, could hear her breath get shorter and faster and he tasted her skin. She was salt and fury and power and something else.

A puzzle.

He stood up and helped her to her own feet. "You have been most helpful today, Miss Granger," he said. "You are quite right that I should stop with three horcruxes and, apparently, avoid babies named Harry."

She shuddered. "I think I'll go lie down," she said. "Helping the devil makes me a little queasy."

He caught her wrist in his grip. "As you lie down, think about how you didn't object to my touch," he suggested.

"Think about how you willingly touched a Mudblood," she countered before she strode off.

He watched her walk away and murmured, "Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior." Mr. Callahan would have been pleased by how well he remembered the poem. Catullus 85, as he recalled. Funny how things could stick in the brain only to bubble up when they became relevant.

. . . . . . . . . .

The way Antonin Dolohov scurried back into a room when he saw her stalking down the hall almost made Hermione smile. She'd once heard him hiss to one of the other Death Eaters, "What did I ever do to her?" and the urge to say, "You cursed me in the Department of Mysteries when I was fifteen and left a scar that will never heal," had made her mouth twitch open but she remained unsure exactly what she was doing with the way she was poisoning the timeline and informing Dolohov of anything seemed unwise.

Things were already different.

Tom Riddle already didn't plan to make more horcruxes.

She might have spared Harry a lifetime of being hunted by a madman. That was worth something, wasn't it? That made cooperating with Lord Voldemort okay, didn't it?

She rubbed at her forehead and pushed open the door to her room - to Tom's room? to, Merlin forbid, _their_ room? - and then kicked it shut behind her. She hated how much she liked the man's simple taste; the room was soothing and pleasant and close to perfect. All the boys she'd known had decorated by affixing posters of Quidditch teams and banners from school sports events to their walls. Harry had made, at best, a token effort at cleaning out the debris left behind in Grimmauld Place and had then settled in to a cheerful bachelorhood of take away pizza, paper plates, and belching contests with Ron.

She loved them but sometimes they made her want to scream with just how idiotic they were. How childish. She chalked it up to post-war recovery; none of them had gotten to be children when they were in school and now that the world was safe they were taking the opportunity to be as immature as possible. Ginny had been unsympathetic to her complaints. "You've got a stick up your arse," she'd said. "Take it out before you marry Ron or you'll both be miserable."

Hermione flung herself down on the bed, pushing her shoes off with her toes, and wondered what she was doing. She'd told herself that if she could steer Tom Riddle away from his insanity she'd be able to make the world better. Failing that, she'd go back to trying to kill him. She just wished he didn't have to be so charming.

So pretty.

Why did he have to be so pretty? Why did he have to hold her chair at dinner with a courtesy she'd never experienced and smile at her with that mocking tilt to his lips when she seemed surprised? Why did he have to pour pearls into her hands and goad her to push her magic further instead of calling her a swot and groaning about how she wasn't any fun and didn't she want to hear more about Quidditch?

It wasn't fair for a monster to be clever and charming and it wasn't fair for a monster to listen to her and it wasn't fair for a monster to make her skin bloody well burn when he lay his fingers against it. "You love _Ron_ ," she muttered to herself. "Brave, noble, virtuous, heroic _Ron_." She reached a hand up and wiped her mouth again, as if she could undo the memory of his touch on her lips. "I hate and I love indeed," she said. "As if I could be impressed with a little Latin poetry."

She rolled onto her side and hid her face into the pillow. She was stuck in the past with a brilliant and dangerous man but she was dangerous and brilliant herself and she'd feed him just enough information to change his path. She'd steer him toward something less deranged, less violent. She'd play on his contempt for his underlings and his fear of losing his mind and make him, well, not good. Nothing and no one would ever make Tom Riddle good.

He was nothing like Ron. Nothing like Ron, who she loved and missed.

Nothing like Ron, who would never quote Latin poetry at her.

She wiped her hand across her mouth again.

She was doing the right thing. A world with Tom Riddle as a functional person could only be better. He could be a politician. Merlin knew that after the war she was quite aware how many politicians were little more than functional sociopaths anyway. He'd fit right in.

It would be fine.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

 ** _Catullus 85_**

 ** _Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?  
_** ** _nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior._**

 ** _I hate and I love. Perhaps you ask why I do this?  
_** ** _I do not know, but I feel it happen and I am torn apart._**


	5. Chapter 5

When Hermione opened her eyes Tom Riddle was staring at her. He'd settled himself into a chair by the fire in his - _their_ \- room and had his legs stretched out in front of him, his hands steepled together, and his eyes fixed on her. "Creepy to watch me sleep, Tom," she muttered as she sat up.

"I have killed multiple people, have violently split my soul into multiple parts, and am hoping to avoid a descent into madness by exploiting your knowledge of the future," he said. "Somehow watching you sleep seems like the least of my sins."

"Still creepy," she said.

He shrugged. "Dress for dinner," he said. It was clearly more order than request.

"And here I was planning on wearing nothing," she said, scratching at the back of her head and wiggling her toes. "You people and your social codes are very oppressive."

He chuckled and stood up and she felt, again, like rabbit in the eye of a hawk as he came just a little too close to her. "I might enjoy that," he said, "but do you really want to pretend you don't care that Abraxas and Antonin are ogling you? Usually the naked girls at dinner aren't having a good time and they might get the wrong idea."

She shivered at that reminder of the company she was keeping and Tom lay a hand across the side of her face. "It would be a shame if that happened," he murmured. "They are barely competent, I know, but recruiting is harder than you might think and if I had to kill them for inappropriate dinner table behavior I'd have to find new flunkies. Be kind to me, Miss Granger, and put on a dress lest I end the evening gouging out their eyes."

Hermione turned her face so her mouth was pressed into his palm. His whole body momentarily stiffened at the feel of her breath on his skin before he relaxed again and she thought smugly to herself that two could play at this game of making the other uncomfortable with a touch. She kissed the hand and murmured, "Who knew you were such a gentleman, Tom Riddle. I don't believe I've ever had man offer to blind his friends for me before."

He took the hand away and she tilted her head to smile up at him, pleased that she seemed to have won that round. "I do believe I've already commented that manners in the future seem sadly lacking," he said. "Now go get dressed in something pretty. We have company and I'd like you to seem untouchable."

"Who?" she asked.

He watched her for a moment and then said, "A man named Orion Black. He looks down on me, and will certainly look down on you if you mention your unfortunate heritage, but he's curious and powerful and a member of the elite."

"Sirius' father," she murmured, "I think."

Tom's face took on the expression of a cat in the cream and he knelt down on the floor at her feet and nearly purred. "You know something, my love," he said.

She shook her head. "He doesn't join you." She had to struggle to remember what she'd heard. Sirius' troubled family history had only been interesting to her in how it affected Harry. "You're too extreme, willing to go too far. He's… he's a blood purist, certainly."

"Hard to miss that," Tom said. He lay his cheek on her knee at looked up at her, a charming supplicant who could barely keep from licking his lips. "Tell me more."

"He was a terrible father," she said.

"Will be," Tom corrected her.

"I don't know much," she said helplessly. "I'm not an encyclopedia of the future. You… one son joins you. The other fights against you You are…" she paused and considered. A powerful Orion Black, young lord of the Black family, would only support Tom Riddle if he thought the man likely to keep purebreds in power without burning the streets down. He was a lever she could use. "If you want his help," she said, "you have to be a politician, not a revolutionary. You have to work within the system." She looked down at the beautiful face gazing up at her with raw lust in his eyes. "You'll have to be willing to take power the usual way, not by war and violence and…"

"But he'll help me," Tom said. "If I seem reasonable."

"I don't _know_ ," Hermione said, letting one hand run through the man's far too temping curls. "It would all be different. I'm not a bloody crystal ball."

"I want power," he said softly. He reached up with one hand and removed her fingers from his hair as he sat back onto his heels and considered what she'd said. "You have your reasons for telling me this, don't you, my love?" He took the hand he still held and kissed the back of it. "Play me false and you'll regret it."

She snatched the hand away and he laughed. "Get dressed and get ready to charm, Miss Granger. We're going to go and wrap Orion Black around my finger, where, after all, you seem to want him."

"I hate you," she whispered.

Tom Riddle rose and held out a courteous hand to help her stand. "Then it must be killing your soul to help me like this." He smiled. "How amusing."

. . . . . . . . . .

Hermione came out of the shower and fought to get her hair to wind up and stay on her head in a coif that looked even remotely right. She made a frustrated sound and Tom Riddle pushed open the door to their bath and eyed her, standing there in lingerie in front of the mirror with her hands in her hair.

"I thought you were kidding about not wearing clothing," he said, letting his eyes wander down her legs and back up to her brasserie with only a raised brow. "This is quite the fashion statement."

"Bugger off," Hermione snapped at him. "Do you not have _any_ boundaries? Who just walks in on someone like this?"

"I do," Tom said as he leaned up against the doorframe. "We're madly in love, remember. There should be no barriers between us."

Hermione gave the man a scathing look but, as he showed no signs of leaving, turned back to the mirror and made a point of ignoring him as she struggled to get her hair up. He watched her for several minutes before he sighed and approached her. "What's the problem?" he asked her.

"I can't hold it in place _and_ do the sticking charm at the same time," she muttered. "I need two hands to twist it up and that leaves nothing to hold the wand."

Tom met her eyes in the mirror as he took the hair from her and wound it up with ease. He held it there and, without moving, murmured the sticking charm and took his hands away from her hair and settled them on her shoulders, running one thumb back and forth over her shoulder.

"Show off," Hermione said.

"Little Hogwarts witch," he said. "I can teach you how to be more."

"Tom Riddle's school of evil?" she asked, watching that thumb in the mirror as it caressed her skin.

"Evil is such a melodramatic word," Tom said. "Magic is magic. I could kill you by levitating you off a cliff and that's the first spell most children learn." He slid his hands down her arms and moved in closer to her so his body was just a whisper of an idea away from hers. "Didn't you do accidental magic without a wand as a child?"

"Yes," she said, the word hoarser than she meant it to be.

"Are you less powerful now than you were at five?" he asked her. When she just shivered under his hands and didn't say anything he whispered, "They try to limit you, you know. It's not an accident that everyone is taught to need a wand, that you're all taught the same spells, the same tricks." He whispered a word and the water droplets in the sink transformed into tiny, white flowers. He reached his arms around her, pressing up against her to do so, and plucked one flower up and set it into her hair. Then a second, then a third. Hermione stood, transfixed, as he used wandless spell after wandless spell to put the flowers in her hair. "There's far more magic in the world than what you learned in the classroom and, contrary to your prejudice, it's not all screaming babies dying in flashes of light and blood stains under the sofa."

"The Ministry," she began.

"Wants to control every aspect of magic use," Tom said. "Do you _like_ having an oppressive government, Miss Granger? Or perhaps they become more trustworthy in the future, more open. Less dictatorial."

"No," she whispered, thinking of all the times the Ministry had denied Voldemort's return, had lied to the populace, had let laws fall away when they wanted to. "They… I'd call them fascist, or close enough."

"Would I be so much worse?" He put one last flower in her hair and stepped back; the few inches between their bodies seemed suddenly like a loss and Hermione ached to step back into him again, to have him wrap his arms around her again. When she met his eyes in their reflection, he knew, and his lips slowly turned up in a smile. "Would I?" he asked.

She closed her eyes. "I would support you for Minister," she admitted.

"You would _help_ me," he corrected her.

"I am."

"I know." Her eyes were still closed when he leaned down and pressed his mouth to the shoulder he'd rubbed with his thumb earlier. She stood utterly still as he grazed the skin with first his lips and then his teeth. "I find it delightful."

"You find it useful," she said, swallowing hard.

"Mmm," he said into her shoulder. "I do. Thanks to you, Miss Granger, I shall apparently manage to avoid madness and shall turn my attention to owning the halls of power rather than burning them to the ground." She made a tiny whimpering sound. "I am Lord Voldemort," he whispered, "Minister of Magic."

She trembled under his mouth and he took his hands and turned her so she was facing him, her back to the sink filled with flowers and the mirror. Her eyes were still closed, screwed shut against him, as he took his mouth and pressed it to hers. She took a step back, away from him at last, and ended pressed into the lip of the sink.

He straightened and moved away from her. She blinked her eyes open to see Tom Riddle watching her again. "Now that your hair is done, put some clothing on and come with me to dinner. We haven't time for what I - and you - want."

"I only want to keep you from destroying the world," Hermione said.

"Then put on a dress, my love," Tom said, "and get ready to charm Orion Black."

. . . . . . . . . .

Orion Black looked like Sirius. That was the first thing Hermione thought when she saw the man standing in the drawing room. He had dark hair and grey eyes and the same disdainful tilt to his head that Sirius had kept even after years in prison. Where Sirius had scowled, however, and worn every emotion on his tattered sleeve, this man revealed nothing. Hermione suspected she could tell him she was a Mudblood from a future where he had already died and he'd take a sip of his wine and smile as blandly as if she'd informed him the forecast was for rain the following day.

Handsome, she thought, but cold. She flicked a glance at Tom, who had one hand on her lower back and a bland smile of his own in place. Tom, she though, burned. He _wanted_. He would set the world ablaze with the force of his desire for power, for knowledge, for life.

For, she was starting to fear, her.

She set that thought aside and greeted Orion Black. "We've not met before," he said.

Before she could open her mouth Abraxas murmured, "She's a cousin on my mother's side. Wrong side of the sheets, if you follow, but…" He trailed off and coughed in a way that, Hermione realized in fury, was meant to tell this man in encoded speech that she was a _bastard_ , of course, which was why he'd never met her, but she was still _okay_. He could still acknowledge her because she was nevertheless a _pureblood_.

She was going to object to this absurd fiction when Tom's fingers dug into her spine and she remembered that this foul, blood purist wouldn't speak to them, wouldn't speak to Tom, if the girlfriend on his arm wasn't 'pure.' She wanted Orion Black to sponsor Tom Riddle because better a politician backed by the Ancient and Noble House of Bigots than a gang of Death Eaters terrorizing the country. She met Abraxas' eyes and he narrowed them at her.

"My cousin Abraxas has been very kind to me since I arrived," Hermione murmured. "I'm very grateful he's taken me under his wing."

It must have been the right thing to say because Abraxas relaxed marginally and Tom's fingers released their grip on her back.

"You can hardly do better than the Malfoy clan," Orion Black said. He was ponderous and pretentious even this young and Hermione remembered his future wife shrieking at her from her portrait. They would be well matched.

"I'm going to have her legitimized," Abraxas said. "A few bribes and she'll be eligible for a good marriage."

Hermione's false smile became significantly more strained and she had to fight to keep from giggling hysterically. She wondered what Draco Malfoy would have thought if she'd fluttered her eyes at him the way she was doing to Orion Black and whipped out some Ministry document declaring she was his legal, pureblooded cousin. He'd probably have passed out on the spot. It was too bad she'd never get to see him grit his teeth and accept her as a social equal.

She realized she'd probably be stuck with this crew, glued to Tom Riddle's side, for the rest of her natural life. She'd know Draco Malfoy as a baby. She'd see him whisked off by a nanny to have his nappies changed.

The giggle became harder and harder to control; fortunately she wasn't required to participate in this conversation now that her bona fides had been established. Orion and Tom engaged in a verbal dance where they talked around how they both felt the Ministry was both too liberal ("half-bloods in every department!") and too conservative ("while an _Avada Kedavra_ is clearly not acceptable there's no call for the government to be regulating magic to this extent. They just slap the label 'Dark' on anything they want and swoop in and confiscate it.") Hermione stood at Tom's side watching the byplay and marveling at how good Tom was at this. He managed to promise nothing at all while convincing the other man that he'd be a full supporter of Orion's pureblood supremacy agenda. After what felt like far too long, Abraxas took her elbow and said, "Let me get your some wine, cousin."

"That's so kind," she said, and let him lead her away.

"Cousin?" she asked after he'd fetched her a glass of chilled and fruited wine and they'd moved to the patio.

"Welcome to the family," he said, toasting her.

"Tom's doing?" she asked. She wanted to be sour about it but, she had to admit, it made sense. An obscure, illegitimate cousin could flutter around the Death Eaters in a way a time traveling Mudblood could not.

Abraxas nodded. "Do you think you could stop cursing me?" he asked. "Now that we're related and all?"

She sighed as she looked at him. "Family means more to you than any cause," she said, assessing him. His face tightened a little. "Why?"

"He's already less… volatile," Abraxas said. "He's brilliant, don't misunderstand me, but you are… I had no interest in going to war." He looked past her at the Dark Lord charming Orion Black. "Having you moderate his bloodier impulses suits my own purposes and having Tom Riddle's wife be a Malfoy, even if through an obscure and unimportant branch of the family, does as well."

"Wife?" Hermione nearly squawked and Abraxas looked amused.

"You two have been sleeping in the same room for almost a week," he pointed out. "You're either a whore or a wife. I recommend wife."

Hermione glowered at him and he laughed. "Cuz," he said. "Accept it. There are worse fates that being Tom Riddle's wife."

"That is harder for me to believe that you might expect," she muttered.


	6. Chapter 6

Tom woke up to the sight of Hermione draped across one of the chairs by the fireplace, her wand pointed at him. He reached for his only to narrow his eyes as she laughed and waved it from her other hand. "Week's up," she said.

He sighed and sat up, the blanket and sheet falling away to reveal the torso Hermione had not been ogling every night and at which she quite deliberately did not stare now. He had never touched her at night, despite sharing the bed. That she'd left a knife from the kitchens between them as a pointed and pointy reminder that she was not interested might have had something to do with that. Of course, he might have just been enjoying the way he left his invasions of her space for when she was awake.

"Do you really plan to try to hex me," he asked now. He sounded amused, as usual, and his voice was slightly husky. Hermione told herself that was because he had just woken up. The way he licked his lips as he smirked at her was because they were dry, the way the sheets fell and revealed his erection was just because it was morning.

"You killed people I cared about," she said. Her hand was shaking as she pointed the wand at him. "You destroyed lives. You - "

"Have done none of those things," he said.

"I obliviated my parents to protect them from you," she nearly hissed, fighting back tears. "They don't know they have a daughter. I turned myself into an orphan to save them."

Tom reached out his hand and summoned his wand. "Come back to bed," he said, his voice still rumbling with that hint of desire and also what sounded like what might even be a hint of concern. "I refuse to apologize for things I haven't done. You are helping me create a world where I won't have to."

"I - "

"am distraught," he said. "I can make you come back but I would prefer you set your wand down on your own and come here. We both know you aren't going to curse me and this drama could easily become tedious."

Hermione nearly snarled but she flung her wand down and glared at him, the tears welling over the edge of her eyes. "If you had killed me that first night," Tom murmured, reaching a hand out toward her, "You would have won. But you gave me a week, my love, and now you know that coaxing me into what you want is far better for the world than killing me outright. Without me someone else will just push himself into power. The Ministry is too flawed to stand. But me you have some control over."

Hermione took a step toward the bed and the outreached hand.

"I don't," she said.

"Have control over me?" Tom raised his brows. "You're alive. You've already shifted my plans. I'm not your puppet, Miss Granger, no, but I'm _listening_."

She took another step. "I hate you," she said.

"No," he said. "You don't. You might hate who I become but you don't hate _me."_ He exhaled and eyed her. "You're intelligent enough to understand the difference."

"You're evil," she said but she was closer to the beckoning hand.

"There is no good or evil," he said. "There is only power and those too weak to take it." He brushed the tips of his fingers across hers. "There is, however, also staying sane and not being hunted down like a dog by obsessed fanatics."

"Don't turn into a rabid dog," Hermione said, setting one knee on the mattress, her eyes never wavering from his face.

"My love," he said but she shook her head. "Miss Granger," he said, then, " _Hermione_. _"_ His voice caressed her name and she shuddered but pulled herself onto the bed. "Shall I make a vow?" he asked. "I will do all that I can to _not_ turn into a crazed monster?"

"Whose definition of monster," she asked as he wrapped his hand around her wrist.

"Mine," he said and yanked her forward so she fell against him. He pinned her to the mattress and laughed, a guttural sound, and lowered his face so his lips were at hers. "Tell me no," he mocked.

"I don't even like you," she said sounding lost. "I have a _boyfriend_."

"You had a boyfriend in a future that doesn't exist," Tom said. "In this reality you have, as far as the polite world is concerned, a fiancé. A very, _very_ powerful fiancé." She shook her head but he took his hands and held her face steady. "Don't even pretend you don't like that. Don't even _pretend_ you aren't as fascinated by what I can do as I am by what you know."

She took her freed hands and grabbed the back of his head and pulled his mouth to hers; his chuckle was dark and pleased and quickly swallowed by the demands of her searching kiss. His hands tightened on her cheeks and she protested a bit at the roughness of his grip but he merely bit down on her lip in response and she gasped and pushed herself even more violently against him. When he finally released her mouth it was to turn his attention to the line of her jaw, to her neck, to the curve of her ear. Every touch was fire, every lick searing, and she offered herself up to the devil with her hands in her hair and his erection prodding her as though she were one of the damned. She let her hands explore the lines and planes of the stomach and chest and hips she'd been so careful not to look at and he quivered and preened under each stroke and she nearly cooed at revelation she had this much power over this brilliant, dangerous man. This much power over Tom Riddle.

Tom Riddle.

It was thinking his name that broke the spell. She was in bed salivating over Tom Malvolo Riddle. Lord Voldemort.

She froze.

He sighed and released her; he sat up and watched her as she fled into the bathroom and began to retch. When she looked up from where she knelt over the toilet he was standing in the doorway, staring down at her, a black robe hanging, unbelted, from his shoulders.

"I become that loathsome?" he asked her. He didn't sound despairing or regretful or horrified. He sounded merely curious.

"You create a future that vile," she choked out. "I was tortured because of you. Hunted because of you. Your little pet Dolohov cursed me because of you - "

"Which scar?" he asked.

"What?" Hermione demanded.

Tom Riddle handed her a glass of water and said, his voice uninflected, "He didn't do the word on your arm. Knowing Antonin, he would have spelt it wrong. Which scar is he responsible for? You have quite a few."

Hermione shrank down and leaned against the wall next to the toilet as she rinsed her mouth. "I'm sorry the body your foul war scarred doesn't meet with - "

"I adore your body and was having a very pleasant time become acquainted with it in more detail," Tom said. Hermione shivered; she almost expected the water in her glass to freeze as a physical response to how cold his voice was. "Now tell me which one Dolohov did."

She wordlessly lifted her hand to her shoulder. "He would have killed me," she said, "But I'd silenced him and he had to do it without speaking."

"He's never been good at that," Tom said. He squatted down and looked at her shoulder. After a moment he traced a thumb across the puckered flesh. "You are very beautiful," he said, almost as a side thought. "That is not your main attraction, of course, but I would be irritated to see you descend into the tiresome habit of claiming to be ugly just to have me praise your appearance."

Hermione closed her eyes. "You are a monster," she said.

"And you are a witch," he said, "and a powerful one." She opened her eyes as he said, "Don't point a wand at me again unless you want me to ravish you on the spot."

She said, rather shakily, "Is there something wrong with you?"

He straightened up and reached a hand down to help her. "Get dressed or you'll miss breakfast with your loving cousin. I told him to find some engagement ring for you, something pretty you'd like."

"You're having Abraxas choose my engagement ring?" Hermione realized she felt more outraged about that than was reasonable.

Tom leaned over to her and kissed her again, gently this time. "No," he said. "But I am pleased to see you so offended at the idea." He pulled a small box out of a pocket of his robe. "Here. This is for you."

"It is customary to ask," she muttered as she pried open the box.

Tom Riddle snorted. "I wasn't aware you had a choice. Leave my protection and you'll be lost in a world you don't know with no friends and no money."

Hermione looked at the simple sapphire and felt her throat tighten. She'd told Ron she didn't want a diamond and he'd told her not to be ridiculous, that diamonds were how it was done. She'd never even… "I like it," she whispered "Thank you."

"Blue is generally the symbol for intelligence," he said, amused again. "It suits you."

. . . . . . . . . .

Hermione had barely sat down at the breakfast table, smiling a greeting at her 'cousin' Abraxas, when Tom pulled out his wand and pointed it at Antonin Dolohov. Abraxas looked at her, a clear question in his eyes, but all she could do was shake her head. She was as confused as he was.

"Get up," Tom said.

The man he was addressing stood, shaking, and said, "My Lord, what have I - "

"Go to the back veranda," Tom said. "I have too much respect for my host, my charming fianceé's loving, if recently acquired, cousin, to get blood on his carpets."

"I appreciate that," Abraxas said. He pushed his chair back and prepared to trail after the other two men.

Antonin began stumbling toward the door. "If you run it will irritate me," Tom said. "I can make things much worse when I'm irritated."

"My Lord," Antonin said again, desperately, "What have I done? I've served you faithfully, I've - "

"Become a bore," Tom said. He held his hand out to Hermione. "Come." She opened her mouth to refuse and then, looking at the man's expression, shut her lips with a snap. Tom Riddle didn't exactly snap his fingers at her but she rose and took his hand. "I have a present for you," he said, "something to celebrate our engagement." She shivered.

Antonin led the way to the veranda, his shoulders braced against the torture he expected. Tom followed, Hermione at his side. Abraxas came last. The rest of the Death Eaters turned to watch but made no move to join the group, probably afraid they'd attract the same sort of attention Antonin Dolohov had. Tom made a sudden sharp, slashing motion with his wand and a streak of purple flame cut across Dolohov's shoulder and the man collapsed. Tom looked down at him and smiled as the man gasped in pain and began to make gurgling noises as blood soaked his shirt.

"I never told you - " Hermione began, causing Abraxas to regard her with interest.

"I do recognize the scarring pattern," Tom said. "I like to be well informed about the spells I use and teach," he said. He turned to smile at her and her blood didn't run quite as cold as she felt it ought. "Research. Experimentation. You'll find I am very thorough in everything I do." He took his free hand and rubbed at a smudge on her chin. "Would you like to finish him off?"

Hermione shook her head.

"Love," Tom coaxed, "You've been taking your anger out on him for a week. If you kept going that way you probably would have killed him eventually."

"That's not - "

"The same?" Tom leaned over and kissed her on the nose. "It's exactly the same." He nudged the prone Dolohov with a foot. "This was what he wanted to do to you," he said. "Of course, he's never been good at wordless casting so he failed. Will fail. Quite reprehensible, really, and not something I tolerate." Tom pulled her wand out of her pocket and tucked it into her hand. "Do it, love. You tried to _Avada_ me within moments of meeting me so I know you're not squeamish. End him."

Hermione's hand shook as she held her wand and looked at Abraxas as though he would help her. All the man said was, "The longer you refuse, the longer he suffers."

"Maybe that's what she wants," Tom said. He stepped away from Hermione and, summoning his prepared tea through the open door, took a sip. "I applaud that, my love. Quite in character and so alluring." Tom cast another quick spell and Dolohov twitched, one foot spasming. "I'll make sure he stays alive and conscious for you so you can drag this out as long as you like."

Hermione took a step backward away from the body on the stone floor.

"I can keep him alive like this a very long time," Tom said.

"You don't have to do this," she said, whirling and facing Tom. "I don't want you to do this!"

"You don't appreciate my present?" Tom asked. He sighed. "I am new to this doting partner thing. I suppose I'm sure to get it wrong sometimes. Still, he's there, quite hurt, and it's up to you to decide what to do." He examined his nails as though he might have gotten some of Dolohov's blood under them. "No hurry, Miss Granger. Shall we go in to breakfast before the eggs get cold?"

"You'll fix him?" she asked.

Tom pulled back as though startled by the very idea. "No, no," he said. "He'll be waiting for you after breakfast." He patted her on the shoulder as if in reassurance. "He's in terrible pain, of course, but it's really not _much_ worse than many of the things you've been doing to him."

Hermione shuddered and, turning back to the body, leveled her wand and whispered, _"Avada Kedavra."_


	7. Chapter 7

"You are upset."

Tom had led Hermione on a walk after breakfast, a breakfast she hadn't eaten, and he was watching her with that damned half-amused smile on his face.

"You made me kill a man," she said to him. The blood had yet to return to her own face since she'd cast the spell and she still looked pale and wan and as if she would return to retching any moment. "Yes, I'm upset, Tom. Normal people feel upset after that." She crossed her arms across her stomach and bent over a little as she stepped away from him on the gravel path that wound through the gardens at Malfoy Manor. She wondered, briefly, if Draco Malfoy had played on these paths - would play on these paths. The echoes of past and future almost hurt sometimes. "Not that you would know how normal people feel," she muttered.

"Normal is not a standard for which I've ever striven, no," Tom said as he reached over to a bush and yanked a handful of leaves off. "But, let us be honest here, my love; you aren't some sweet bit of fluff yourself."

"I'm not a murderer," she said, not looking back at him. "Or I wasn't until this morning."

"Oh, really?" Tom came up behind her and stood there. She'd stopped at a small bridge that curved over a decorative stream and waited there as if unsure what to do. Tom released one leaf from his hand and, as it fluttered to the ground, it turned into a bright yellow bird that flew away, chirping at them with a scolding call that seemed to call out all their sins. "I believe you mentioned you obliviated your parents?"

"That's - "

"Different?" He pressed his cheek up against her hair and murmured. "You asked their permission, then? You said, 'Mum and Dad, there's a group of men who want to kill me and I think they might go after you so I think I should erase your entire existence and send you away. Is that acceptable?'" Tom paused. "You asked them that?"

"Of course not," she choked out.

"So you killed them, took their memories and their lives without their consent, killed them as surely as if you'd cursed them - and, my love, most people would considered a memory spell of that magnitude a Dark curse - and sent their bodies, inhabited by what might as well be new people, away?"

"It wasn't - "

"Don't be naive, Miss Granger," he said. "You killed them."

"I hate you," she said, the sound hoarse and broken as she stood, unmoving and held in thrall by his voice.

"But it was probably better than the other choice," he conceded, ignoring her words. "Would my idiot followers have been brutal?"

His voice almost caressed the word brutal and she shivered against him before she spit out her answer. "Yes."

"So you spared them." He ran a hand down her arm. "As you spared dear, sweet Dolohov the torment he was enduring today."

"You were _torturing_ him," she said.

Tom didn't respond to that directly, just turned another leaf into a a brilliant turquoise bird and said, "I have a feeling, sweet Miss Granger, that your obliviation of your parents wasn't the first time you dipped your toe into the Dark arts."

"It wasn't the Dark arts," she said, but her voice wavered and she sounded less sure.

"It was," he said dismissively. "You used a usually benign spell to erase their identities and recreate them. Dark; very Dark. I am impressed with you, my Hermione. But no one starts there. Did you never cheat to make things a little easier? Maybe not for yourself, little self-righteous love, but for a friend, perhaps?"

She tensed and he saw that and laughed. "Oh, yes," he murmured. "You did, of course you did. Ever use magic to punish someone who upset you? Betrayed you, perhaps?"

"That wasn't Dark arts," she said, her voice shaking. "It wasn't. It was to fight against you, it was - "

"Acceptable because the ends you wanted justified the means you used?" he said. He released another leaf and this one turned into vibrant red sparrow and landed on a nearby statue of Daphne and Apollo where it cocked its head to the side and watched them. "What else? Did you ever make anyone suffer? I'm the one, you know, who will never condemn you for those choices, never see them as anything but you exercising the power you have. You can confess your so-called sins to me without fear."

"I kept a woman in a jar," Hermione whispered, the words seemingly pulled out of her. "She'd… she was an unregistered animagus. She… she had written terrible things about a friend in the paper. She was… I captured her in her beetle form and kept her in a jar."

Tom Riddle pulled her hair back and pressed his lips to her neck. "You are not the innocent you would like to be," he said. "You are far more like me than you want to admit. Try, my love, to be honest enough with yourself to face that."

"I am not - "

"You are," he said. He nipped at her skin with his teeth and she made a tiny sound, half-protest, half-plea for more. "My love, I mean. You are, Miss Granger, the most interesting woman with whom I have been acquainted. You appear in my bed, you try to kill me, you turn out to be a Dark witch of some talent if, alas, also, a woman hiding in the delusion she's one of the virtuous. You are clever and lovely and your skin tastes like cinnamon and power." He ran his tongue over the spot he'd bitten. "And there are very few things I like more than power."

He let the rest of the leaves he'd plucked fall to the ground and, even as he wrapped his arms around her and pressed his lips to her skin he cast the spell to turn them to birds and a rainbow flock flitted away into the trees.

"They aren't real," she said, her eyes on the birds.

"No," he admitted. "They will fade back into leaves before long. Creating true life is magic quite beyond mine."

"I'm glad you think something is beyond you," Hermione muttered. She stood, shivering in his embrace but didn't try to pull away from him and he chuckled at her sour tone.

"Am I forgiven for punishing a man who hurt you?" Tom asked. They looked, from a distance, like any happy couple. HIs arms remained around her and she'd tipped her head so it leaned back against him. "Or do you plan to continue to wallow in needless guilt that you killed a man who would have done the same to you, probably after raping you for hours, if I told him you were no longer under my protection and he could do as he pleased?"

Hermione turned at that and tried to glare at the man but he just smiled at her. "He liked to break his toys," Tom said softly. "Abraxas is too fastidious for rapine, as am I, but Dolohov always enjoyed it. He liked to make his victims beg to be hurt, a plea he always acceded to."

Hermione closed her eyes.

"Are you glad he's dead yet?" Tom asked her. "I could go on. I could tell you how he struggled to learn - "

"Stop," she hissed. "Just stop."

"As you like," he said. "Do remember, however, that I shall not permit people to harm you."

"I don't need your protection," she said, her eyes still closed. He made a scoffing sound and she added, "I don't _want_ your protection."

"Need I remind you that you are adrift in time?" he asked. "Helpless, friendless." He put a finger on her chin and tipped it up so he could layer taunting, soft kisses along the side of her mouth. "How fortunate you are that I find you so interesting."

"How fortunate you are that I don't slit your throat in your sleep," she muttered. "My promise not to hurt you has ended."

"Indeed," he whispered against her skin. "I shall endeavor to continue to be too fascinating to kill out of hand as I continue to keep you from harm."

"Your pureblood supremacy policies are not going to keep me from harm," she said.

"Bravo," he said, his tongue licking at her mouth. "Well done. You take the power I give you and you play it so very neatly. Yes, Miss Granger, I shall have to ensure a future where your blood status doesn't result in torture or condemnation, shan't I?"

She stepped backward and he released her, his eyes sparking with curiosity and a bit more when she pulled out her wand and pointed it almost at him then, as if remembering his earlier injunction, slightly to his left. She whispered the _avis_ charm and a flock of birds erupted from the end of the wand with a bang that startled Tom's earlier creations. Hermione's conjuration joined their more colorful brethren in a nearby tree after flying about in mad circles for a few minutes while both magicians watched in silence.

"I could show you how to do that without a wand," Tom offered.

"I did that once and had them attack someone," she murmured. "Maybe you're right. About me, I mean."

"What had he done?" Tom asked, pulling another leaf off a tree. "Same spell," he said, "just instead of channeling your power down the wand pretend the leaf _is_ your wand."

"Kissed his girlfriend instead of me," Hermione said, taking the leaf from him and not meeting his eyes.

"Not to save the world?" Tom asked. The teasing tone was fond and she turned her back on him as she concentrated on the leaf in her hand.

"Don't try to do it silently at first," Tom advised her. "It will be too hard to just call up - "

But she'd done it. The bird had the same coloring as the leaf rather than one of the jewel tones Tom's creations had sported and the leaf-bird fluttered more than flew, but it still floated its way to a tree branch and perched there, confused and chirping. Excited by her success, Hermione went to grab another leaf from a tree but Tom already had one waiting that he slipped into her hand. Her second bird flew with more confidence. Her third was a shocking green.

She turned to Tom who smiled at her with genuine pleasure. "An enchantment to delight the soul," he said. "Magic at its finest."

"What of your soul you have left," she said but she couldn't quite control the smile that pulled her own lips up as her birds called to one another in the trees.

"I have all of it," Tom said. "Just in multiple places."

"It was important to be on the right side," she said. The words were short and sharp and one of the birds flew from its branch, calling out a complaint about the way she'd startled it. "Your side wanted me dead, wanted my friends dead. You were a monster - a literal monster - and insane. Raving."

Tom didn't mention her sharp jump in topics, he just nodded as he watched her face. "You only had one possible side," he agreed. "Nothing else would have made sense."

"My side didn't… Dark magic wasn't allowed," she said. "Dabbling in anything Dark was… there were no gradations. It was - "

"They were zealots?" he asked, still watching her.

" _You_ were zealots," she countered.

He nodded again and, picking up a stray twig, turned into a begonia that would have won first prize at any fair. He handed it to her and, bemused, she took it. "Like the tedious but powerful Orion Black?" he asked her.

"Mixed with the violence of Dolohov," she said. "Pure blood supremacy, thuggery, violence. That was what Dark magic was."

"You can be yourself with me," he said. The quiet words hung in the air. When she didn't answer he added, "None of it is truly Dark, Hermione. It's intent that makes the spell light or dark."

"Horcruxes," she said, throwing the word out there.

His lips parted and then closed and when they opened again it was to let out a laugh. "You win," he admitted. "Horcruxes."

She reached her hand out to him and, when he took his, let her fingers twine through his. "I am still upset with you," she said.

"He wasn't a pleasant man," Tom said. "And his personal hygiene was, upon occasion, unacceptable." He tugged on her hand and she let him pull her closer until there was only a hand's breadth of space and a crushed flower between them. "I see I shall have to purge the ranks and ensure only people who will be amendable to you remain."

"More murder," she said.

"They are - "

" - not pleasant men." she said. She hesitated. "Not Abraxas."

"No," Tom agreed. "It would be unthinkable to slaughter your cousin." He brushed his lips over her forehead. "He will be pleased to know he has an ally in you," he added.

"Well," she said, leaning the forehead he'd kissed into Tom. "He's family."

Tom lifted his fingers and ran them through her curls. "I suppose he is," he said. "Plus he has this lovely house."

Hermione laughed a little at that and then asked, almost shyly, "Would you teach me how to turn the rocks into pearls without a wand?"

"My love," Tom said, "I will teach you anything you like."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - 2 more chapters after this one and then the epilogues._**


	8. Chapter 8

After an afternoon spent doing magic, after another dinner where Hermione had worn one of the dresses that felt like a costume, after a walk back to their room where she'd felt Tom's hand on her lower back like a fire she couldn't extinguish, Hermione felt like she was in a fever dream. Nothing seemed real. She ate with a man who was the grandfather of a boy who'd taunted her in school. She ate with men who didn't mention she'd murdered one of their own before breakfast. She ate with a man who would became a demon and who watched her with amused eyes. She walked to her room with a man who would become a demon and who didn't despise her for things she had done - would do - to destroy him. She turned and kissed a man who would become a demon as if she could devour him and burn her own inconstancy away.

He almost purred when she licked at his lips, he opened his mouth to her searching tongue, he reached his hands behind her and searched for the zipper of her dress.

"It's on the side," she muttered. "Stupid period clothes."

"Of course," he murmured and she turned so he could slide down the metal fastener and she could wiggle out of the dress.

"It always seems so smooth in stories," she gasped with a slight giggle as the dress got stuck halfway over her head. "No one ever gets - ow! my hair! fuck!" She stopped talking and began to fight with the dress which had snagged itself in a curl and was refusing to go any further.

"Hold on," Tom said. "Let me." He reached a hand through the full skirts covering Hermione's face and carefully extricated her hair from the teeth of the zipper where it had gotten caught then he pulled the dress over her head and tossed it to the floor. She leaned back into him and caught her hands in his hair, tugging on the dark curls so he'd follow her as she backed across the room to the bed. Along the way she shed her shoes and he unhooked the brasserie that had never quite fit correctly. He stopped moving when her breasts were uncovered and pulled his head free of her hands so he could lower his mouth to the tip of one breast while he ran one hand around the curves of the other. "I love these," he murmured. "Who knew they were so soft?"

"Anyone who's ever touched one," Hermione said before she gasped at the way his fingers moved along an erect nipple.

He shrugged, his mouth still on the other breast. "Why would I have done that?" he asked.

She pushed him away and stared at him. "Are you telling me you've never…." She trailed off and swallowed hard, suddenly uncomfortable as Tom Marvolo Riddle began unbuttoning his shirt.

"Is that a problem?" he asked, a glint of that endless and infernal amusement in his eyes.

Hermione shrugged and reached a hand out to slide it across the planes of the man's stomach. "If it's not for you," she said. "But how is that - "

"Why would I have sex with a victim?" Tom asked, reaching down to unbutton his trousers. "I've no interest in the weak. I can hardly imagine you've been off sharing yourself with people beneath you."

"No," she said slowly. "My only partner was a man widely considered a hero."

"Helped to kill me, did he?" Tom asked as he used his feet to push each shoe off and then let his trousers fall to floor. As Tom stepped out of them Hermione pulled her wand out of the holster she'd rigged on her thigh under the endless skirts of her dress and leveled it at him. Tom looked up at her and licked his lips. "I told you not to point a wand at me," he said in a husky voice, his response to her straining against his pants.

"You told me not to do it unless I wanted you to ravish me," Hermione corrected him. A small flock of birds flew out of the end of her wand for the second time that day.

Tom laughed and banished them with a word. "Try harder," he invited and closed the distance between them until the length of his body was pressed against hers. She opened her mouth to utter another spell and he reached up and plucked the wand from her hand and muffled whatever words she'd meant to say. He scooped her up and set her back onto their bed and knelt above her, his hands at the knickers he was pulling away and, she looked up, put a finger to his lips, and whispered a spell.

As his hair caught fire he licked his lips and shook his head to make the flames disappear. "I could easily fall helplessly in love with you," he said. "Be very careful, witch." She spread her legs as he slipped his fingers against her and watched her face as she gasped. "I must be doing something right," he said.

She sat up and pushed him over until she was straddling him. "Maybe you should let me show you how it goes?" she suggested as she began to pull his pants off. "I think it is time for you to stop showing off and let me play a bit."

"Mmm," Tom Riddle said. "I could be persuaded." She lowered her mouth to the lines of his hips and stomach she had been admiring - or not - all week. Tom Riddle in his twenties was a man just coming into his physical prime, with muscles that rippled under her hands and mouth. He groaned under her ministrations, letting his fingers trails through her hair. When she trailed her tongue along the length of him he inhaled sharply. When she took him into her mouth his fingers tightened in her curls. When she began to move he murmured her name. "Hermione," he whispered, "Tell me how you appeared in my room. Tell me who sent you to me as a present, as the best present I've ever received."

"I don't know," she said, letting him pop out of his mouth and wiping the spittle that formed a long string between her mouth and his cock before she straightened up and looked at him, her eyes serious. "It wasn't my doing. I don't even know any wizards left alive in my time powerful enough to have sent me back through time and through your wards like that." She shook her head and ran her fingers up his thighs. "Dumbledore could have done it, maybe, but he was killed at your behest years ago."

Tom tugged at the tips of her hair. "You are," he said.

"I am what?" she asked.

"The best gift I have ever received," he said.

"You grew up in an orphanage," she scoffed. "I doubt Christmas was a time of glorious excess."

"The paucity of gifts in my past does not make me not appreciate you," he said. "You are brilliant, not a word I use loosely, and fearless, and filled with useful information, and I find that I like your mouth very, very much."

Hermione's smile shifted from somewhat embarrassed and shy at being called brilliant to a more of a smirk at the comment about her mouth. "Stop asking me questions about the future," she said, "and I can use that mouth to do things other than talk."

"I find I am far less interested in the future at this very moment than the present," Tom said and she grinned at him before lowering her mouth back down and taking up where she had left off. When his groans had reached a point where she knew the end was nigh she pulled herself up and positioned herself above him. He was at her entrance before he said, "But you haven't - "

"The night is young," Hermione said. "Shut up." She lowered herself onto him and leaned forward, pinning his wrists with her hands. "Don't make me set you on fire again."

"Hermione," Tom whispered as she began to move along him, "Hermione." He took his hands and clutched at her back, the short nails digging into her skin as she rode him. He drew blood when he came, her name still on his lips and her skin beneath his hands.

She pulled herself up and then rolled to the side. He pushed her over so he could see and traced his finger along the bloody marks. "I'm sorry," he murmured, healing them with a single brush of his hand.

"What did you think," she asked as she turned back to him and pressed herself up against his side.

"I start to understand the way men are driven by lust to idiocy," Tom said. He brushed a finger across one nipple. "I won't be, so don't get any ideas, witch." She made a small sound and he laughed. "I think it's my turn," he said. "Or yours, depending on how we look at things." He inched down her body until his face rested on one thigh. "A favor needs returning, I think."

"We just," she mumbled, "I mean, it'll be… you…"

"Messy?" Tom lifted his head and looked at her in disbelief. He took one hand and swiped it over her, pulling his palm over her stomach and smearing the results of his own orgasm on her skin. "Do you really think I'm going to object to _mess_ given how it got there?"

She lifted her head and looked at him, teeth working at her lip, as he eyed her and then said, "Some hero." He lowered his face back to her and ran a tongue over and around the folds of her skin, lapping at her as she made tiny whimpers and clenched her hands in the folds of the bed covering. "I think, Miss Granger, that I can determine how this works," he murmured. "You do an excellent job of providing feedback."

She gasped as he flicked his tongue across her then tossed her head back as he reached one hand up to toy with a nipple while he kept his mouth pressed to her. He slipped first one finger, than two, inside her and laughed against her as she writhed beneath his touch, her whole body tensed as she focused on nothing but how he touched her, how he played her for her pleasure and, she thought, his. This time the thought that she was in bed with Tom Riddle - Tom Marvolo Riddle - didn't send her running for the toilet but made her arch under his hands even more fervently. This man, the most powerful wizard alive, wanted her. Wanted her badly. Wanted her body but, more, wanted her mind, and not just for the way she could help him shape his future. The thought of the way his eyes had glinted as he'd shown her new magic, as she'd twisted reality to her bidding and turned twigs into ropes of pearls, as she'd turned those pearls into silvery fish that had leapt into Malfoy's pond and darted about in the water, that thought, that image was what pushed her over the edge as he murmured her name one more time against her skin.

"Hermione Granger," he said.

She propped herself on one elbow and looked at him. "Tom Marvolo Riddle," she said back, mockery in her voice

"I will make the world for you," he said.

She flopped back down. "Don't make elaborate promises in the afterglow of sex," she advised. "That doesn't always go well."

"I don't generally make promises at all," Tom said. He wiped his face on the blanket and then pulled himself back up so he could wrap an arm around her and feel the length of her back pressed up against his body. "Tricky things, vows. You never know how magic is going to interpret them. Everyone knows about Unbreakable Vows, of course, but you can lock yourself into all sorts of things with magic and promises. It's best to never promise anything. Safest."

"Exactly," Hermione said.

He ran a hand over the expanse of her stomach. "And I promise you, Hermione Granger, that I will make the world for you."

Hermione's breath caught in her throat. "Tom," she said, about to tell him again not to make promises he couldn't keep, probably wouldn't even want to keep in an hour.

He set his hand over her mouth, silencing her. "I will make the world for you," he said again.


	9. Chapter 9

As the days passed Tom Riddle pulled his attention away from Hermione and returned to what she assumed was the tedious work of being an evil mastermind. Abraxas seemed to have been assigned to her as a babysitter and any time she wasn't with Tom she turned to find him there ready to be charming and a good host. He took her walking in his extensive gardens and talked to her about the girl he was engaged to, a pretty thing, he said, based on the picture he'd seen. He'd never met her. Hermione would have been appalled by that but she found it hard to think clearly and she was tired all the time. She supposed that was a side effect of time travel and made a joke about jet lag at which Abraxas smiled politely but which he clearly didn't understand.

Her toothbrush started to feel too big for her mouth and she wondered if she were losing her mind, if the strain of time travel and sleeping with Tom Riddle hadn't snapped something somewhere. All the rich food at the Malfoy estate didn't seem to be sitting well with her either. She wasn't used to multi-course dinners and full breakfasts every morning and she woke up queasy more often then not. She hid it from Tom, an urge to keep him from knowing any weakness still in force despite the way they spent every night exploring the myriad ways human bodies could fit together and please one another, until she couldn't, until one morning she staggered to the toilet and tried not to retch.

"Are you sick?" he asked her as he stood in the door of the bathroom, naked and erect and observing her.

"I must be," she said. "Or maybe something was off in the damn soup last night. I told Abraxas it tasted funny. Get me a glass of water."

Tom handed her a glass, transfigured from dust in the air and filled with magic, and she took a tentative sip.

He watched her wipe her mouth and watched her straighten up and watched her mutter about how she was tired of feeling like this. At that he said, "How long has this been going on?"

"I don't know," she said. "A few weeks maybe. The food here isn't what I'm used to."

Tom summoned his wand and did a quick charm. He began to laugh as the white light glowed above her abdomen. "You're not sick, Hermione," he said.

She knew the charm as well as he did and what colour had been left in her face drained out when she saw the glow. She became very controlled and walked from the bathroom to the bedroom and began getting dressed, every movement deliberate and considered.

"This is not possible," she said at last as she fastened the strap of her second shoe.

"I didn't do a contraceptive charm," Tom said. "Not ever. Did you?"

"I cannot be carrying the goddamned baby of Lord-fucking-Voldemort," Hermione said. Her tone never wavered, never was not calm. "That is not possible."

"I realize the Hogwarts education is poor," Tom said, "but surely you know how babies are made."

"This is not possible," she said again. The rage and despair came through more clearly that time and she picked up a hairbrush and threw it as hard as she could at the mirror, which shattered. She stalked to the bed and picked up her wand and said, "I will be in the garden considering my options," when she started to fade.

Tom, who hadn't yet moved from the doorway of the bathroom, flung himself across the room. She looked down at her translucent hand, then up at something he couldn't see. "Why does your room suddenly look like my flat?" she asked. With those words she disappeared even as he grabbed for the air where she had been.

Tom exhaled very slowly. "This is not acceptable," he said into the empty room.

. . . . . . . . . .

Tom Riddle permitted himself to get very drunk exactly one time in the wake of Hermione's disappearance. "I still don't understand how she even got past my wards," he complained to Abraxas.

The man eyed him and said, "I thought no one could get through those except you."

"No one," Tom agreed. "I could tunnel you in, but I would have to do that. You couldn't do it on your own."

Abraxas risked a small joke. "I'm glad I'm not your type," he said. "I wouldn't want you to decide to tunnel me across space and time and dump me in your bed."

Tom set the glass he had in his hand down with great care and turned to Abraxas. "Say that again," he ordered.

Abraxas tried to control the shaking in his own hand at his Lord's sudden intensity. "I just said I was glad I wasn't your type," he said. "I wouldn't want you to - "

" - tunnel you across space and time," Tom repeated. "Thank you, Abraxas." He took a drink and didn't explain despite the obvious confusion on the other man's face. "She liked you, you know. She asked me not to kill you."

Abraxas gulped. "I'm gratified to hear that," he said.

"Your investment in her as a cousin has, one might say, paid off," Tom said. "Since now I won't." He shrugged. "Even if you manage to really irritate me as we go forward. There are a few changes I find I will need to make to my plans. You may not care for all of them."

Abraxas tried to control his reaction.

"Go away," Tom said. "I want to be alone."

. . . . . . . . . .

Hermione turned and looked around her flat. It was, indisputably, her flat. It was the flat she had gone to sleep in when she'd somehow woken up in the wrong place and time. Her books were on the shelves. Her cat meowed at her, somewhat displeased to have her appear from nowhere but without the urgency or anger of hunger. Either someone had been feeding the beast or she hadn't been gone long. She touched the leaf of her mint plant. It wasn't wilted. The day's paper had been dropped by an owl through the open window and she picked it up and looked at the date before tossing it down, unread. There wasn't a pile of papers.

She'd been gone one night.

She'd woken up in Tom Riddle's bed in 1953, told him about the future, slept with him, gotten pregnant, and only a night had passed in the real world.

Or her time.

Or however she should think of it.

She put her hand over her abdomen. How was she going to explain _this?_

She prowled around her flat. There were things, small things, that were different. A beloved photo of her with Ron and Harry had been replaced by one of her with a girl who looked like Parvati Patil. She supposed she'd changed things by going to the past and laughed to think that somehow she'd rippled herself into being friends with Parvati. She rubbed her face and realized she had no food in the house and she wanted - needed - something to calm her stomach.

Oranges. She wanted oranges.

She grabbed her bag and headed out the door and down to the market. She noticed small changes but nothing dramatic and, as she was buying a bag of fruit from the corner vendor she saw Ron Weasley, his arm around - Hermione's eyes narrowed as she identified his companion - Lavender Brown.

Still, it had been ages since she'd seen him by her own experience of time and she nearly ran over, her heels dancing over the cobblestones with the ease of a woman who'd spent the last weeks walking on stone gravel paths in a variety of high shoes, and grabbed his arm. "Ron," she said, nearly breathless. "How are you?"

"I'm…fine," he said, looking at Lavender with a question in his eyes. "Hermione? Right?"

She took a step back. "Ron?" she asked him.

"One of Padma's friends," Lavender hissed under her breath.

"Right," Ron turned back to her with a big smile. "Good to see you. How've things been since school?"

She took another step backwards.

"Did you go to a themed party?" Lavender asked her. "I love your shoes. I can never find good period shoes. The clothes are easy enough but… you'll have to tell me your source."

Hermione looked down at her dress, one of the many Abraxas had gotten her, and began to feel faint. "Good," she said. "I'm sorry. I think I might be getting a little… be sure to tell Parvati - Padma - I said hello, okay?"

"I'll do that," Lavender said. She gave Ron a look and he added, "It was great to see you. We have to head off now but you keep on just… yeah." The both hurried away and Hermione closed her eyes for a moment.

She couldn't imagine a world where she and Ron Weasley weren't friends. She almost fell as she walked back to her flat, bag of oranges in her hand. She'd gone into the past and traded her friendship with Ron - and probably Harry - for Tom Riddle's baby. By the time she reached her door the tears were running down her cheeks and she pushed at them with angry swipes of her hand as she let herself in.

She pulled a Hogwarts yearbook out first. She found her name in the index and flipped to her page. She was in Ravenclaw. She was best friends with Padma Patil. She'd gone to the Yule Ball her seventh year with Draco Malfoy ("just because we're cousins you loser" he'd written in the margins near the image of the two of them smiling for the photographer).

She didn't remember any of this. She remembered a war. She remembered punching Draco Malfoy's ferret face. She remembered camping for a year in the cold with Ron and Harry.

But…

There was almost an echo. Like a dream she'd half forgotten, of Draco handing her a cup of punch and telling her something, and of her going shopping with Padma for a dress. For that dress.

She put her hands over her head and shook it as if she could force the memories to be right, to match up with the book in front of her, or make the book match with what she _knew_ had happened. She flipped the pages as quickly as she could. Ron and Harry were still best friends. Harry a Seeker.

There had been no war.

There had been no war.

There had been no war.

She put her hand to her mouth as she realized that. There was a Muggle-born club. There was a page for S.P.E.W. There was a bored looking Draco Malfoy as Head Boy shaking hands with the Minister of Magic who was there to cut the ribbon on the new Muggle Studies section of the library. She squinted at the bad photograph and then pulled the yearbook closer to her eyes and put her finger on the unaged face.

"It was very strange to watch you as a child," said a familiar voice behind her, the upper class accent still a little too perfect. "And your warding magic needs work."

She didn't turn.

"I had to learn to step between realities to send the right version of you back," he said. "The version here would not have tried to kill me."

"So you would have killed her," Hermione said.

"I do like you better as yourself," said Tom Riddle. "This world I made for you has a number of advantages. I'm sane, for one, and alive, and the most powerful man in Wizarding Britain, and no mewling officials dare try to tell me what spells I may and may not do. But you were a right bore in this world. And I needed the real you - this you - to make the loop work. Paradox."

Hermione still didn't face him, though she set the yearbook down.

"I made a world for you," Tom Riddle said. "I have waited multiple decades for my Hermione to return."

"There's nothing wrong with my warding magic," she said at last. "I just didn't set it up to keep out the Darkest wizard the world has ever known as you were dead at the time. I could arrange for you to be dead again."

He laughed. "I've missed you," he said.

She stood up and turned to face him. "Minister of Magic?" she asked.

"For about thirty years now," he said in agreement. "Better that than the mad creature you helped to kill, I think." He had picked one of the oranges out of her bag and was passing it from hand to hand. His voice remained amused and calm but his eyes roamed over her as if reassuring himself that she was really there and that drove home that, for her, she'd faded from his view less than an hour ago but for him it had been fifty years.

He'd waited for her for fifty years.

"Your parents are alive in this half of the loop," he said as she looked at him, as he took in every detail of her appearance. "They know you. They are probably different - you were certainly different - but they are here and they know they have a daughter."

She nodded, silent as she considered him and what he had made and the promise he had, apparently, kept.

"Wait until you meet my assistant, Regulus," Tom said. "He's got this tedious thing about house elf rights."

She twisted the engagement ring on her finger.

"We should get married before you start to show," Tom said, ignoring her continued lack of response. "I've managed to make the world friendly to - or at least not overtly prejudiced towards - Muggle-borns, though thanks to Abraxas' paperwork you are, amusingly enough, still a distant cousin of the Malfoys, but people remain socially quite conservative."

Hermione smiled when she realized at last that Tom Riddle was as close to nervous as she was ever likely to see. She let his squirm for another long moment before she gave in to the inevitable and said, "It's going to be so uncomfortable having Padma Patil as my maid of honor when I'm quite sure I've never spoken more than a dozen words to her."

"Yes," Tom said, closing the distance between them and kissing her forehead. "I suppose that will be a bit odd."

She leaned into him, relieved to have him there, horrified she was relieved, still queasy with what she now knew was morning sickness. "Let me peel you an orange," he said. "I understand they are good for this sort of nausea. My love."

"That would be nice," she said. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he said.

. . . . . . . . . .

 **A/N - In theory this is the end of the story proper, though I remain uncertain whether the first epilogue belongs as a regular chapter rather than an afterthought.**


	10. Chapter 10 - Epilogue One, The Wedding

**~ Epilogue One ~**

Hermione stood on the back veranda of Malfoy Manor, glass of punch in her hand. Tom had, most aggravatingly, charmed her somehow so if she picked up a glass with alcohol in it he was summoned and he'd pluck the drink out of her hand and replace it with something else. He never scolded, never bullied, never did anything other than make sure he got his way every moment of every day and if she weren't so tired all the time she'd express her feelings on the issue more clearly.

Draco came up behind her. "Cuz," he said. "Nice wedding." He looked her over. "Nice dress."

Hermione tugged at the bodice of the white gown. "Your grandfather picked it out," she muttered. "Man still has opinions about clothing."

Draco laughed. Abraxas Malfoy had, in this universe, managed to avoid being carried off by a case of Dragon Pox, presumably because Tom Riddle had promised her not to kill the man. People around him still tended to die, she'd noticed. They fell ill. They went on long trips and met with tragic accidents. His hands, however, remained publicly clean of blood. She suspected that he and the other members of what had remained a secret society got up to things she didn't want to know about when they went on 'spiritual retreats'. He'd actually patted her head and told her not to worry her pretty little self about that. She'd pointed out his week of guaranteed safety at her hands was long over and he'd smirked and said, "Horcruxes."

Draco was regarding her now with a curious look in his too-intelligent eyes. "You've changed," he said. "You're harder. Colder. Much more like Minister Riddle than you were a month ago when you subjected me to a 3-hour monologue about this season's parties."

"I'm sorry about that," she said.

He leaned on the stone railing next to her. "Interesting," he said, "given that never happened."

Hermione's fingers tightened on the stem of her punch glass.

"You'll break that, if you aren't careful," Draco Malfoy said. Hermione put the glass down with careful movements on a nearby table. "I used to have very weird dreams about you," Draco went on. "Visions, you might say."

"I didn't realize," Hermione said.

"Yes," Draco took a sip of his drink and Hermione thought with some bitterness his was probably wine. Of course, he seemed deliberately sober so perhaps not. She could see whatever verbal traps he was laying closing around her. "We weren't cousins, a situation that's always been a bit peculiar given the Muggle-born thing but grandfather insisted I cultivate you and hauled out some excuse about squibs and obscure, bastard relatives. We were a bit more in the line of enemies." He took another sip. "You were a Gryffindor with a mean left hook."

She swallowed hard and Draco watched the movement.

"So they weren't just visions," he said. "Explain."

She turned away from him and rubbed her head. "I remember a different world," she said at last. "Your visions, I think, are what I lived."

"Do you remember anything about the time we snogged for hours in the Ravenclaw tower?" Draco asked.

Hermione looked at him in unfeigned horror and he began to laugh. "You really have no idea about anything that happened, do you?"

She set one hand on his shoulder and said, "I do remember marrying the Minister of Magic, a man who made a world for me and around whom people tend to disappear." It was Draco's turn to swallow hard. "I remember needing a secretary," she said, "Someone whom I can trust without reservation and who can help me with my… memory issues."

"I really can't imagine you as a Gryffindor," Draco said, implicitly accepting the offer. "You'll have to tell me how that happened as we go over some details of your school days."

"I was best friends with Ron Weasley and Harry Potter," she said softly. That loss still ached. She suspected it always would. She'd gone and watched them both play Quidditch in a park and if she'd sniffled at how happy and carefree they both were, well, pregnancy did terrible things to her emotions. She had even told Tom she loved him in a fit of hormone induced sentimentality.

"Weasley and Potter? The Gryffindor _jocks_?" Draco sounded like he thought she was pulling his leg now. "You and Padma wouldn't even go to games most of the time. You told me it was boring."

"It was," she said. "Is. Hand me that."

Confused, Draco passed over his drink. It must have been alcoholic because Tom was at her side within moments. "My love," he said.

"I think I've grown to like this little summoning charm," Hermione said. "It keeps you on your toes which, given how elderly you are, is no small feat."

He chucked her under the chin in amused tolerance and said, "Might I ask for what you summoned me, my love? And I prefer ageless to elderly."

"Draco here has agreed to be my personal secretary," Hermione cooed with manipulative pleasure. "He'll help me adjust to this lovely version of reality. And, love, you're elderly."

Tom gave her an annoyed look. "I am ageless, as you will be as soon as you aren't gestating. I am concerned how pregnancy and suspension of the aging process might interact and have no intention of using you, or my child, as test subjects." He turned to the blond trying not to attract attention and added, "Not to seem overly inquisitive into your staffing decisions, my love, but how is Mr. Malfoy aware of this little shift? Do I need to kill him?"

The boy tried not to look nervous as he murmured, "I've always had images of Hermione - many things - that were different than they were. They stopped happening when you two announced your engagement and she was suddenly… not the same person."

"He was always good at occlumency," Hermione said. "At least in my world."

"That might explain it," Tom Riddle agreed. He was watching Draco with a little too much interest. "We'll have to explore in more depth whether such does allow people to see both versions of the time loop." He pursed his mouth in a dramatic moue to convey he was thinking and Hermione rolled her eyes. "Who else is good at occlumency?" he said.

"Try Draco's mother," Hermione suggested. "Or Severus Snape."

"Who is Severus Snape?" Tom asked.

"Hogwarts Potions Master," she said.

Draco shook his head. "Horace Slughorn is Potions Master at Hogwarts."

"And a less pleasant sycophant never did brew up Felix Felicis," Tom said. "Still, I shall find this Snape. I assume you'd prefer I not do anything unpleasant to your secretary or his family, love? You were quite protective of Abraxas when he was young. But Snape is acceptable?"

Draco's eyes widened as Hermione sighed in much put upon agreement that, no, she really didn't want Tom Riddle hurting the Malfoys. She'd given him a list when she first arrived back in the present and he'd made a fuss about how difficult she was but tucked it away with a not-quite-agreement to leave such people on it as were still alive alone. Snape had not made the list as Tom well knew; he'd memorized the names as soon as he'd seen them. Of course, Draco Malfoy hadn't been on her list of friends that required sparing either. Draco would live, however, and Severus Snape would probably end up mentally dissected in some remote Malfoy property as Tom attempted to find out what unusual magical abilities allowed people to sense the original version of the world he'd changed.

Tom took the glass of wine from Hermione's hand. "Watch her," he instructed Draco. "She keeps trying to sneak unpasteurized cheese as well and I've yet to figure out a charm to stop that. If you're going to be her secretary you'll have to join my little organization but we can Mark you after the honeymoon." Hermione sighed at Tom as he took her fingers and kissed them. "I have to go smile more at the French Minister of Magic," he said. "I made Regulus take on the Bulgarian delegation and last I heard they were arguing about creature rights." He made one of his false shudders of distaste before he leaned in over to whisper in Hermione's ear, "And I do love you, my blushing bride. Very much."

"You are biased as my advice kept you sane," she said as he pulled back from her. "And alive."

Draco managed to become very interested in the view of his own yard as Tom Riddle expressed his sincere appreciation for both his bride and the results of her advice.

. . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - One more epilogue after this one. Then really truly done. If you have any particular characters you'd like to know "where are they now" now is the time to mention them._**


	11. Chapter 11 - Epilogue Two

**~ Epilogue 2 ~**

 **this has nothing to do with the plot**

 **nothing at all**

 **(would I lie?)**

 **it's just a series of**

 **'what happened to everyone in the changed timeline'**

 **very short blurbs**

Lucius Malfoy hadn't cared for the way his father had insisted his own only son and heir cultivate some Ravenclaw Mudblood. He hadn't cared for the way that son and heir had developed an actual, bona fide tendre for the girl. He certainly hadn't cared for the way the boy had moped when he'd been informed he'd be marrying Pansy Parkinson whether he liked it or not. Malfoys had arranged marriages. His grandfather had. Lucius certainly had, though he was more than fond of Narcissa. Draco would.

Lucius had, however, been fascinated by the way Abraxas Malfoy, who'd bloody well insisted the boy make friends with the Granger girl to the point of hauling out obviously falsified documents claiming she was not Muggle-born but rather a distant cousin descended from bastard squibs, had been relieved when Draco had stopped his lovelorn behavior, married Pansy, and produced an heir of his own post-haste; Scorpius was a nearly perfect child and both Lucius and Abraxas adored him.

When Tom Riddle, Minister of Magic and Lord Voldemort - not that many people knew about the latter bit - swooped down and _married_ silly little Hermione Granger, Lucius had turned to his father and said in astonishment, "You knew. How did you know? How _could_ you know?"

"I just knew," Abraxas said. "And now we have a Malfoy cousin married to our Lord and your son in place as her most trusted confidant and personal secretary."

Lucius shook his head in admiration.

Abraxas took a sip of his very expensive fire whiskey. "Here's to hoping that baby she's carrying is a girl," he said, raising the glass in his hand toward his son.

Lucius let out a low whistle. "Scorpius as the son-in-law of…"

Both men exchanged pleased, conspiratorial glances as Lucius raised his own glass to his father. "Daughters are always a blessing," he said.

. . . . . . . . . .

"You are such a kiss-arse," Sirius said with disgust. "how can you even work for that no good bastard Riddle? And now this child bride barely out of the schoolroom?"

"I happen to believe that Riddle is the best Minister of Magic that we have ever had," Regulus said. His voice didn't even become agitated; he and Sirius had this discussion at least once a week. "And Hermione is a lovely woman. You think that you would at least be glad of the work that Riddle has had me doing on creature rights."

"You and your soft spot for Kreacher." Sirius tossed back half a shot of fire whiskey and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "You think you would have grown out of that by now. Sorry, brother, but it is hard for me to get excited about elf rights."

"Merlin!" Regulus said. "You never grow up. Perhaps you could manage to get yourself to care about werewolf rights given who you're married to."

Sirius narrowed his eyes and finished his drink before he asked, "See you at dinner on Sunday?"

"Marlene and I will be there, flourless chocolate cake from that Muggle bakery Remus likes in hand."

. . . . . . . . . .

"Minister Riddle's wedding was very nice, thank you for asking," Percy Weasley said as he reached for the toast.

"We didn't ask," Fred said.

"You just told us," George added.

"I'm sure it was very nice," Molly Weasley said, giving Fred and George a look that started at 'quelling' and moved on from there. The twins ignored the look and remained unquelled.

"Isn't his bride young enough to be his granddaughter?" Fred asked, making a face. "A bit skeevy if you ask me."

"They seem sincerely attached," Percy said, his spine stiffening. He'd had a very nice conversation with Hermione Riddle, complimented her on her Sorting into Ravenclaw, and did she know his own fiancee was from that House? She had; she'd even known he was engaged to Penelope and he'd been flattered that the new First Lady, a Malfoy cousin no less, knew who he was. He didn't want to hear criticism of who he hoped might be a political patron.

"Did I tell you I had the weirdest encounter with her a few weeks before the wedding?" Ron asked. When Percy made a 'do tell me more' sound, Ron told them how the woman had run up to him in the street, "just as if we were the closest of chums when I swear she never said two words to me in seven years. And even though it was morning she was dressed as though she were coming back from a costume party." He shook his head. "So strange. She invited both me and Harry to the wedding, though neither of us went, of course. Too weird."

"She sounds very polite," Percy said, setting his glass of juice back on the table with perhaps more emphasis than was necessary.

. . . . . . . . . .

"Lily," James Potter whined. "I don't _want_ to have to go to your sister's garden party thing. Last time that giant kid of hers almost sat on me."

"Dudley is a nice boy," Lily said, then sighed and admitted, "They're all awful but they're the only family I have. And that husband of hers is on a business trip to Japan so - "

"How did you arrange that?" James asked.

Lily arched her eyebrows but only said, "This time no changing into a deer and pissing in her petunia bed."

"The things I do for you," James said with an exaggerated groan. "Fine. No expressing my opinion in non-verbal ways."

. . . . . . . . . .

Rita Skeeter threw down the story she'd been writing fawning on the admittedly impressive abdominal muscles of that Quidditch player Krum and played with her quill. She _wanted_ to write a story about the new Mrs Riddle and her remarkably healthy and large premature baby girl. She'd _written_ a story on the new Mrs. Riddle and found it back on her desk, under the arse of her editor who asked her whether she was suicidal and did she need a long break to recuperate her mental health.

Rita had stared at the man in confusion.

"People don't cross Minister Riddle more than once," the man had said softly. "And something tells me a speculative gossip column on his wife would not go over well.

She swore and picked up the article on Krum again and tried to find something new to say about Bulgaria's golden boy. Maybe he'd agree to pose for new pictures. That always sold a few papers.

. . . . . . . . . .

Narcissa Malfoy and Andromeda Tonks stood over their sister's grave. They'd laid the flowers down, as they did every month, and contemplated her memorial. "I still miss her," Narcissa said.

Andromeda hesitated. She didn't want to speak ill of the dead, and Narcissa and Bellatrix had been very close, but the truth was that the Black familial instability had been flowering in Bella and it was probably a blessing she'd contracted Dragon Pox and died young. "It's very sad," Andromeda finally settled on.

Narcissa walked to the back to the headstone and swore. "'Dromeda," she said. "It's back."

Andromeda joined her sister and stared in perplexity at the word 'mudblood' that had appeared. No matter how many times they charmed the scar on the stone away, one apparently scratched into the monument with a crude but sharp knife, it came back. "It doesn't even make sense," Narcissa said. "Why would anyone deface Bella's grave with _that_?"

. . . . . . . . . .

Hermione stood in Tom's office and watched the pink clad, toad-like woman offer fawning congratulations on the birth of their daughter. Tom's mouth twitched in a grimace of annoyance that rarely bode well for anyone. When the woman finally left all Tom said was, "I don't think Abraxas would approve of that sweater."

Hermione moved the baby from one shoulder to another and wandlessly scourgified the newest incident of spit-up on her shirt. "I want her dead," she said.

"Dolores Umbridge?" Tom asked. Hermione nodded and he began to smile. "Consider it done, my love." He reached his hands out for the baby and Hermione passed her over. "How's my perfect little girl?" Tom cooed. "We're going to kill someone this afternoon because she annoys your mother. Yes, we are. That's right." The baby let out a wail of protest that quieted as Tom gently bobbed her up and down. "That's right," he said. "We'll kill anyone who annoys you sweetheart," he promised. "No one gets to bother my perfect angel. Angels."

Hermione gave a rather rude snort at that and Tom looked up at her, a falsely beatific smile on his face. She rolled her eyes but her expression softened to one of undeniable fondness as she watched Tom Riddle with their daughter.

. . . . . . . . . .

"Hullo Second Hermione," Luna said as she sipped from a glass of punch. Hermione blinked a few times and stared at the blonde woman in feigned confusion and actual worry. The christening has so far gone smoothly and she'd managed to smile as Padma Patil commented that the pregnancy had been so hard on her and she was happy to see her back to her usual self.

She wondered if she could get Tom to find a really, really good job for Padma far away so she wouldn't get caught as an imposter by the stranger who was supposed to be her best friend. She rubbed at her head and tried to think of what to say to Luna Lovegood. She was fairly sure the lanky, dark-haired man hovering at Luna's elbow was Theodore Nott and she shook her head again and tried to shake out the memory of the man's father, little older than he was now, talking to her during her peculiar stay at Malfoy Manor. "We won't tell," the man who must indeed be Theodore said. He smiled in a way that bared a few too many teeth. "I rather like my life and, at any rate, most of the…." He paused as if searching for what to say.

"Death Eaters?" Hermione asked with as much saccharine as she could inject into her voice.

"Right," he said. "They all know." He smiled slyly. "Maybe you'd put in a good word for me to join."

Hermione looked at Luna who was staring out the window with a vacant expression on her face. "Luna," she said. "Your… friend wants…" She stopped again.

"I know," Luna said. "He likes learning things and that's really the only way to do advanced magical research."

Hermione turned as Tom joined her, Lilith Eltanin cradled in the crook of his arm. "Tom, she said, "You must know of Thoros' son."

Tom handed her the baby and said, "I do, indeed. And have heard good things."

"He wants to join your little cult." Hermione was still trying to reconcile the identical and equally vague woman in front of her with the girl who she'd fought with, the girl who'd been held prisoner by the very group her boyfriend sought to join."

Tom wrapped an arm around her and and murmured "It will get easier, my love." She tucked Lilith against her chest and leaned her head on his shoulder, despising how she drew strength from him in this reality but doing it anyway. Despising how she loved him but doing it anyway.

. . . . . . . . . .

The little girl turned her Chocolate Frog card over and made a face. "Nicholas Flamel," she said. "Who's that?"

Her brother yanked the card out of her hand and turned it over. "Some alchemist," he said. "Lived 600 something years." He kept reading. "Dead now. Been dead almost 50 years."

His sister huffed. "Some old, dead guy. Great. Throw it away. I wish I'd gotten one of Rabastan Lestrange. He is so gorgeous."

"And an amazing wizard," her brother said. Rabastan's notorious good looks didn't appeal to him. "The duel he fought with that old Dark wizard who escaped from some prison on the continent? A-maz-ing. His brother too."

"Hadn't Dumbledore fought him too?" his sister asked. "Grindelwald, I mean."

"Whatever," the boy said. "Just sent him to prison. He escaped so what good was that? It was Rabastan who finished the job."

"Yeah," his sister said. "But all I got was some dead alchemist."

. . . . . . . . . . .

"Headmistress," the student stuck her head around the doorway of Minerva McGonagall's office. "They're just about ready for you. The Minister's going to arrive in five minutes."

"Thank you, Hagrid," McGonagall said. "I'll be right there." The man nodded and lumbered away and McGonagall sighed and, despite her words, made no movement to get out of her chair. Another year without Albus, another memorial service, another day to wonder what had happened. How had one of the greatest wizards of their generation been killed in his sleep? He'd been found in his bed, his wand missing. Nothing else had been stolen, there had been no sign of breaking and entering. It remained a mystery and there had been only perfunctory efforts on the part of the Ministry to solve it.

McGonagall rubbed her forehead and stood up. She hated these memorial services and wished the man they were for were here to puncture their pomposity with some of his nonsense words or even a twinkling smile just for her.

Still, duty called, and she went to greet Minister Riddle, his very young wife, and their new baby, Lilith. She shook her head. The things people named their children.

. . . . . . . . . .

Harry Potter had his head down in a closet and his arse up in the air when Parvati found him. "What are you doing?" she asked in the kind of exasperation only a wife can muster.

"Looking for my invisibility cloak," he said. "I can't find it."

She rolled her eyes and said, "Merlin, let me look." However, after rummaging through the shelves she stepped back, put her hands on her hips and said, "Huh. When was the last time you saw it."

"I'm not sure," Harry admitted. "Maybe at school? Honestly, I'm not sure I've used it since Dumbledore died. Just… where would it be if not in my old school trunk?"

"I don't know," Parvati said, "but I'm sure it will turn up. It's not like anyone would have broken into Hogwarts just to steal your cloak."

"You're probably right," he admitted.

"Of course I'm right," she said. "Now stop messing around and go get dressed because we're supposed to meet Ron and Lavender for dinner in 30 minutes."

. . . . . . . . .

Augusta Longbottom lay a wreath on her son's grave and knelt down on her arthritic knees so she could brush her fingers across the names. Frank. Alice. Neville. She wondered what their little boy would have been like. He'd have been a man by now. Would he have been as talented a wizard as his father? As brave as his mother? She bowed her head and, after a span of time so long an observer might have feared she'd joined them in repose, placed a hand on the top of the stone to help raise herself up.

Slaughtered on Halloween in their home with the culprit never found. Little Neville had just started saying what she had insisted was "grandma."

He would have been a brilliant, brilliant boy.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Ginny grinned at Cho. "Kiss for luck?" she asked, one hand on her broom.

"Like you need it," Cho Chang scoffed, but she pulled the woman over and kissed her girlfriend of several years so deeply the photograph would run in the _Prophet_ with a coy remark about tonsils. The rest of Ginny's professional Quidditch team ignored the pair; their mutual adoration and total lack of concern about public displays of affection had long ago rendered their pre-game snogging so commonplace as to be dull.

"Go win for me," Cho said at last, shoving Ginny toward the pitch.

She did, of course.

It was a world of nothing but victory, after all. There was nothing at all to fear in a time of peace and prosperity.

Nothing.

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	12. Chapter 12 - Dramione Drabble

**A/N - Itty bitty drabble in this AU from one of the times when Draco and Hermione snogged for hours because I'm such a helpless sap of a dramione shipper even in a tomione.**

 **. . . . . . . . . .**

Draco pulled away from Hermione and said what he'd been dreading telling her since he'd gotten the owl that morning. "They finalized the betrothal contract," he said. "I'm marrying Pansy directly after graduation."

Hermione brushed a stray lock of his pale hair out of his face. "Are you okay?" she asked. Her blue tie was half out of her bag where she'd shoved it after he'd tugged it off, desperate to unbutton her shirt, desperate to touch her one last time even though he knew it couldn't possibly be anything but wrong now.

He nodded, half miserable but also relieved she was taking this so well.

"We knew this was coming," she said and he nodded again. "Draco," she said, very seriously now, "this was never meant to last, not this part of it, but we'll be friends forever."

"I just…" He stopped and shook his head, trying to clear the endless half-images of her as someone else. Someone fiercer. "We aren't really cousins, you know. It wouldn't have been - "

She put her hand to her heart and gasped in mock dismay. "Are you telling me that paperwork your grandfather hauled out isn't real? That I'm not really your fourth or fifth cousin via some bastard squib but just a Muggle born? I'm wounded."

"You aren't just anything," he said with a snort. "And the very moment having you as a Malfoy cousin becomes useful, you'll be ensconced in a suite at the Manor and you know it."

She sighed. "Cuz," she said. "You will be happy with Pansy, right?"

"I like Pansy fine," he said. "It'll be fine." He did too. He just resented being pushed into a marriage, even one he might have sought out, without so much as a by-your-leave.

He didn't mention how his grandfather had hauled him aside the last time he'd been home and said, fear behind his eyes, that he needed to break things off with 'the Granger girl.' "Be friends," Abraxas Malfoy had said. "Be _best_ friends, but keep your hands off her. She's not for you." He'd added, inexplicably, "As she is now, she's not for anyone."

Draco thought of the dream he'd had the night before where he'd watched Hermione scream on the floor of the Manor as a woman he didn't know - his dead aunt, he supposed, given people had called her Bella - did things that made his blood run cold even now, hours later with a whole, not tortured woman watching him with worried eyes.

"I'll be fine," he said again. "We'll make you godmother of the Malfoy heir and everything." He added impulsively, the vision of her in agony haunting him, "Hermione, you know you can count on me no matter what, right? We'll be friends always and no matter what happens I'll… I won't desert you. You could become downright evil and I'd stand by you."

She twined her fingers through his. "Friends, always, right?"

"Godparents of each other's children," he vowed. "Always."

. . . . . . . . . .

 **A/N - If you want more in the Wibbly Wobbly world, Elzia has written a fic called Over and Over Again about a man who sets himself against Riddle. s/12490800/1/Over-and-Over-Again**


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